


Dimension-Crossed

by Diana_Raven



Category: Red Robin (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dimension Travel, Hospitals, M/M, Rehabilitation, Slow Burn, Therapy, Violence, idk i can't think of anything else, long fic, the oc villain is there for plot purposes only, uhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 11:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 62,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14055642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_Raven/pseuds/Diana_Raven
Summary: Tim Drake falls through a portal and into another universe, one that looks... a lot like his own and was somehow spared from the Crisis. When he finds Conner Kent, aka Superboy, alive his first instinct is to hug his best friend, only for him to remember that he's on a parallel earth. Tim tries to find a way back home, meanwhile he will try to get over the traumas of his past and maybe find love.Takes place at the very beginning of Red Robin and at the end of s2





	1. The Story

**Author's Note:**

> IT HERE  
> THIS GARGANTUAN MESS IS FINALLY HERE AND READY TO BE PUBLISHED!
> 
> I wrote this fic because of a conversation me and Cruss had like a year ago basically. It took me like five months to write and then I took a break for half a year and only just finished editing now. Almost a year since my last Big Fic. But here you are, the gargantuan that is Dimension-Crossed. I hope you like it.

Tim stumbled through the portal barely realizing that he had. He caught himself, grabbing onto a black shirt that somewhere in his mind he recognized but he was distracted at the moment by the searing pain in the underside of his belly. The person who’s shirt he grabbed clamped onto his shoulders, steadying him. Familiar yet unfamiliar hands. Why were they familiar? Tim ignored the pain which coursed through his body (as he so often did) and glanced up at the man who held him.

“Conner-you’re alive!” Tim slipped through his fingers, holding his best friend in a hug. Something was off and Tim knew it subconsciously but at the moment he couldn’t process anything because of the way that his best friend was holding him and the major wound in his belly. “Thank god you’re alive. I knew it, oh god, I knew it.”

Tim knew he was babbling too and despite his best friend’s confused face he clung to the man, because _oh god Conner was alive!_ Except that he wasn’t and Tim knew he wasn’t. Unlike Bruce, Conner was really gone and there was nothing he could do about that but then Conner said confused: “Uh, who are you?”

Tim still replied quickly and with the assumption that Conner was alive, “Oh! Right, you’ve never seen me in this suit. It’s me, Tim!” He pulled off his cowl with one hand (his gauntlet was sticky and wet and something was wrong but Tim still wasn’t fully processing his situation). But when Conner pulled back, Tim frowned and realized that no, Conner was dead. He was really dead. And this Conner, this Conner wasn’t alone.

Tim turned around. People he knew and some he didn’t swam in front of his eyes but only when he noticed a small (fifteen years old? Sixteen years old?) boy in a suit so very similar to one of his own did he realize his mistake. Not time travel, that was for sure, he didn’t remember this and that suit wasn’t anything he’d ever worn. Only one other alternative came to mind: parallel earths, and man had he had enough of those to last a lifetime.

“Who did you say you were?” The boy asked but the pitch of his voice changed and Tim’s vision mushed together and all he could get out before he found a comfortable spot on the floor to curl up and die was: “huh. There’s another me.”

* * *

Tim groaned and rubbed his eyes. He was warm and in something as soft as a cloud looked, and while he was always up for being in warm and soft places he was sure he had things to do, places to be, and people to fight. Though, he had to admit he had one hell of a dream. Tim blinked his eyes open, squinting in the bright light of the room and frowned. Where the hell was he?

The room was clearly some sort of medbay, which made sense because something was aching and it felt suspiciously like a gash. He remembered bits and pieces of the fight with the green-magic-colored sorceress who had suddenly appeared on one of his hunts for more information about Bruce. She’d been screaming something in French and Tim had had other things on his mind so she’d gotten the drop on him and everything after that was slightly blurry and didn’t make much sense.

Someone must have picked him up (if it had been Dick Tim would-) and brought him to this medbay. It looked curiously like that of the Watchtower’s which wasn’t encouraging to Tim in the least, especially since he wasn’t exactly the world’s most popular hero at the moment (was he even a hero still? Or had he given up that title when he started doing things that Robin wouldn’t?). Tim decided that he’d better leave before something bad happened and by something bad Tim meant burning more familial bridges. Grunting, Tim pulled out his IV and checked his body to assess damage. The cut was pretty bad and would take some days to scab over in a way that wouldn’t be harmful to his health if he had the sudden need to protect himself, which was problematic because Tim didn’t exactly want to be in the Watchtower and if he remembered anyone he knew correctly he knew they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

So Tim did the only thing he could think of, he grabbed his IV pole and began to hobble over to the door of the medbay. He would have gotten across to it but since he was no longer on painkillers his pain had come back with a vengeance and forced him to sit on the edge of one of the empty beds (because apparently he was the only person _in_ the medbay) to catch his breath. Fuck. He was worse than a sitting duck, he was a _wounded_ sitting duck. Tim gripped his IV pole and hoped—prayed—that no one would enter the bay before he managed to find clothes (he was in a hospital gown and in new underwear which meant someone had changed him _oh god someone had changed him yes he knew his other underwear had probably been encrusted with blood considering where the pain was but still oh god_ ) and figure out a plan of escape.

Sadly, the universe(s) never seemed to be on Tim’s side anymore and he heard two pairs of footsteps and a rather familiar voice approach the door of the bay. Tim clutched his IV pole for dear life, hoping he’d be able to summon up the strength to attack them with it. “-but other than that the mission went fine.” The woman said. She opened the door and Tim almost breathed a sigh of relief because he knew that at least _this_ hero was on his side.

Even though she looked… really different. “Hey M’gann, when’d you cut your hair?” He asked. He was about to ask more questions when her companion walked through the door and Tim realized that no, it had not been a dream, which meant Tim was very royally screwed.

“H-how do you know my name?” M’gann (not his M’gann) asked.

“You’re awake.” Superboy (not his not his not his not his not his not his) said, surprised.

“I-uh.” Tim didn’t really know what to tell them. He could tell them everything, or nothing. Except they needed to know something things (like how the fuck he got here) and others he _really_ didn’t want to tell them (like why he had just started crying when their Conner spoke).

“Woah, dude, are you okay?” Conner asked, next to him in a second. Tim didn’t (couldn’t) look at him and any sounds he would make would come out as a sob so he refrained from responding. He was handed a box of tissues and Tim blew his nose, trying really hard to ignore the stares from the two heroes at his side. “I-I didn’t mean to-are you okay?” their Conner asked.

Tim swallowed thickly and clenched the IV tighter. “Y-yeah.” He said shakily. “P-pain.” Yes, pain was a good excuse. They could understand that Tim was crying from pain and not from the fact that he was staring at a doppelganger of his best friend who was recently deceased on his world.

Their Conner finally seemed to have noticed that Tim was indeed _not_ on painkillers (some things never changed) which he quickly rectified and he carefully picked Tim’s pale, shaking body up and placed him back in the soft, warm bed he had woken up in. Only after a few minutes when the pain finally retreated to a dull ache and his mind was groggy with morphine did he stop shaking and tears stopped rolling from his eyes. Conner (if that even was his name on this Earth) and M’gann (whose name was apparently the same as his version) sat on the edge of his bed, exchanging worried looks.

“To answer your question, I’m from a parallel universe.” Tim said bluntly.

“You’re… what?” Conner (not his not his not his not his) asked.

“From a parallel universe. You know, alternate reality, parallel earth-“

“I know what a parallel universe is.” Their Conner interrupted. “I just… didn’t know anyone from one before now. Time travel _sure_ , but alternate realities…”

“How did you get here?” M’gann asked.

Tim closed his eyes. “Portal. Definitely a portal. It was made by this… sorceress? I don’t know her name and I’ve never seen her before.”

“Helpful.” Conner (but possibly not) grunted unhelpfully.

“You said your name was… Tim?” M’gann asked.

Tim felt a flush cover his cheeks. “You remember that.”

“We weren’t the ones losing pints of blood by the minute.” Conner (he assumed) reminded Tim. Tim winced.

“Sorry about that, I-you reminded me of someone I knew.”

Conner frowned and Tim prayed that he wouldn’t ask Tim about the past tense in the sentence. “Well I’m Conner, but I’m guessing your me was called that too.”

“Yeah. Sometimes.” So he _was_ Conner.

“So... where’d the gash come from?” M’gann asked.

Tim thought back to the fight. “I think the sorceress who sent me here gave it to me but it was the heat of the battle and my memory is a little fuzzy.”

“Sure, I mean, who wouldn’t remember getting stabbed.” Conner said.

Tim glared at him and the alternate version of Kon just glared right back. “I was busy, it’s not like being stabbed is a new sensation for me.”

M’gann nudged him and he sighed, relenting. Huh, that was… unexpected. Did the two of them have history here? “I should probably tell Kaldur you’re awake.” Conner said. He stood and walked out of the medbay.

“Who’s Kaldur?” Tim asked.

“You don’t have one of him on your world?” M’gann asked.

Tim shook his head, “not that I know of.”

M’gann frowned and didn’t respond. After a few seconds she said, “I just called Zatanna, she should be here soon to see about your return to your world. You… do have a Zatanna, yes?”

“Yeah. She’s a homo magi on my world.”

“Ours too. Is there anywhere she should aim on your world? You are still wounded, it might be good to send you to a home or safehouse…”

Tim shrugged and the ripple of muscles stung. “Anywhere is fine.”

M’gann cocked her head. “But aren’t you a hero? Don’t you have people who worry about you and can take care of you in your condition?”

“Sort of.” Tim _really_ didn’t want to explain his social situation at home right now. But M’gann looked skeptical. “Look, not getting anyone else in my world involved in anything that has to do with me is probably a good idea right now.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you should stay here then. Rest before you go back.”

Tim was about to thank her but tell her that he had things to attend to (like proving that his mentor and adoptive father wasn’t dead) on his earth but the door opened and a black skinned, blonde haired man walked through, followed by Conner and what looked like a smaller version of… well, him. The possible him closed the door behind him and crossed his arms, standing a good distance away from Tim.

“I am Kaldur’ahm of Atlantis, but most refer to me as Aqualad.” Huh, okay so not Garth clearly. Kaldur must have been a nickname for Kaldur’ahm.

“Tim. Tim, uh…” Tim glanced nervously at the possible him in the other side of the room, “actually just Tim. But you already knew that. Because you were there when I arrived here. Sorry about that.”

“It is alright, we all have embarrassing moments.”

“Yes, but I’m sure they’re usually not like _that_.” Tim said lightly. “Are you the leader here?” Honestly under any other circumstances he would have expected the answer no, but considering how young the possible him looked it made sense that the older heroes would be running… whatever this place was.

“Yes, for the time being. Our latest leader recently went on… leave.” Suddenly all of the people in the room looked solemn. Shit, Tim knew that look only too well. Someone had died.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Tim said softly. Conner, M’gann, and the possible him looked shocked but Kaldur didn’t.

“Superboy tells me you are from another universe?” Tim nodded. “Then we will work on returning you there. Our main magician is currently on her way, Zatanna—do you recognize this name?” Tim nodded again. “Good, then it might be easier for the two of you to work together.” Kaldur took out a clipboard and a pen, “but she has sent me a list of questions to ask you to speed this process along, would you mind if I ask you them?” Tim shook his head. “Very well. Where were you when you were transported here?”

“Where is here?” Tim asked.

“We are at the Watchtower, in orbit, currently over Europe.” Kaldur frowned and poised his pen. “Did you not have one on your earth?”

“No we did, I just wanted to make sure that’s where I am. To answer your question I was in the catacombs under Paris, France. I’m not quite sure where.”

“What were you doing down there?”

“I was on a mission.”

“But you’re not French.”

“No, I was… looking for someone.” And that was all they needed to know about that.

Kaldur scribbled something on the clipboard. “When you came here do you remember if a spell was used or if you traveled through technology or some other means?”

“Spell. Definitely a spell. There was this green ball of magic and the sorceress yelled something in French… uh ‘leave me by myself’ or something, and then there was the portal and well… you know the rest.”

“Can you tell me anything identifying about this sorceress?”

“Green fire. Spoke French. Other than that? Not much. She was a woman, black hair… that’s about it.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It is only… that is very little information.”

Tim shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t know there’d be a quiz.”

The next few questions were things like if Tim had ever had magic used on him before (yes), had it been transport magic (sometimes), had he had any ill side-effects from it (depended what Kaldur meant by ill {no}), if he had eaten recently (no), when was the last time he’d gotten any sleep (when he collapsed after he walked through the portal), and if he had had any injuries recently that could be affected in transport (well there was a big gaping gash in his body but he figured that Kaldur knew it existed). Speaking of…

“Thank you for stitching me up.” Tim told the heroes, gratefully.

“You’re welcome. It seemed like a pressing matter.” Tim wasn’t sure if Kaldur was teasing but then the straight-faced man smiled gently and Tim knew.

“You said your name is Tim?” The boy in the Robin suit at the far edge of the room said abruptly. Tim nodded, glancing at the other three heroes. “And you’re from a parallel universe?” Tim nodded again.

“Are-are you _me_?” The Robin asked. Tim sent another glance at the other three heroes. He wasn’t sure what he should reveal to them, after all some of the things he had gone through they clearly hadn’t (evidence by Kon—Conner being alive) and others visa versa (whatever this team that Kaldur was the head of). “They know who I am.” Robin added.

Well it wasn’t like they could really do anything with the information, and besides… other universe possible him trusted them. “My name is Tim Drake, on my Earth I’m currently called Red Robin.”

The other possible him looked down at the R on his suit. “Is that related to the name Robin?” He asked.

Tim grimaced despite himself. “Does the name Damian mean anything to you?” He asked. Robin and the others shook their heads. “Then yes. It is related.”

“Related through this Damian?”

“Yes.”

“But you won’t tell us anything else.” It wasn’t a question but a statement.

“No. Anything else may be… harmful to your future.”

“Harmful how?”

“I don’t know. Just… trust me.”

The four exchanged uneasy looks but nodded. The possible him walked over and sat on the bed next to Tim. He pulled off his mask and Tim knew he’d recognize that face anywhere, on anyone. “My name is also Tim Drake and I think you’re me. But… you’re older. A lot older than me.”

“I’m only eighteen!” Tim argued.

“Yeah. Older than me.” Other-Tim (Robin, Tim was just going to refer to him as Robin) smirked.

“You’re eighteen?” Conner asked.

Tim nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

“No reason you just look, I dunno, younger.”

“Younger, older, make up your minds.” Tim said, avoiding any real sort of response (he didn’t want to explain the bags under his eyes or the weary way he looked at people, he didn’t want to explain the pale and slightly burnt cheeks and his body which was way too young to experience what it had).

M’gann rose suddenly and walked over to the door, opening it quickly. Four heroes stumbled into the room, clearly having had listened with their ears pressed to the door. Robin slipped his domino mask on so smoothly one might not have even noticed he moved at all. Tim frowned, was that _Cassie_? And Jaime?

M’gann picked up a small green kid with a monkey’s tail drooping behind him (no way that was Gar, he was so _tiny_!). “What have I told you about eavesdropping?” She scolded.

The boy blushed bashfully. “We just wanted to know who he was…” He admitted.

M’gann sighed and let go of the boy. He bounced to his feet and the four younger heroes looked expectantly at M’gann, who waved them in, and dashed over to Tim’s beside. “Thatwaythatyouwenthroughthatportaltotallycrashmanimeanscaredustilthemodebutlikereallycrashstill-“ Tim would recognize that speed of talking anywhere.

Kid Flash zoomed up to Tim, ran around his bed a couple times while he spoke and only stopped when Tim grabbed his uniform. “Chill Bart, I don’t know what some of those words mean.”

Kid Flash’s mouth dropped open. “Youknowmyname?!?”

“Yeah, that way of speaking isn’t something you forget.”

“Dude! Totally crash!” Bart cried. “Are you from the future too?”

“Parallel earth.”

“ _Woah_!” Bart was vibrating from excitement. “I’ve never met anyone from a parallel earth before!”

“Tim, are you okay?” M’gann asked. Crap, was Tim crying again?

“Fine, just, pain.” Tim grumbled, trying to contort his face into something other than sadness, though he wasn’t so sure that he fooled the older heroes this time. He wiped his eyes and Kaldur asked if he should increase his morphine. Tim was tempted to say yes to stick with the whole I’m-not-crying-because-two-of-my-dead-best-friends-are-suddenly-not-dead but he hated how slow this amount made his mind so he declined, claiming the pain would pass.

“Do you have a me on your earth?” The green boy asked.

“Is-is your name Garfield Logan?”

The boy’s eyes light up. “Yeah! Aw, cool! Do I have the same powers on your earth? Am I a leader of the team? Do I get all the ladies?” He asked, wiggling green eyebrows.

M’gann looked affronted by the last statement and cried out a scandalized “Gar!”

“Yes. No. Depends.” Tim responded. Gar seemed unhappy by the concept of not running his own team so Tim added, “but you are a stable member of the Teen Titans. You, Kori, and Raven.”

“Who?”

So they either didn’t have Kori and Raven on this Earth or they just hadn’t met them yet. “Doesn’t matter. Just some friends of yours on my world.”

“What about me?” Presumably Cassie asked.

“Cassandra Sandsmark?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah I have a you.” When silence followed his statement Tim realized they were all waiting for him to elaborate. “We used to be on a team together.” _We also kissed but there is no way in hell I am saying that_.

“Used to be?” Cassie asked, confused.

“We, um, a lot of stuff happened recently and the team hasn’t exactly been… whole. Plus I have had a lot to deal with, we all have. There just hasn’t been much time for team meetings lately.” Okay, so some of that could probably be considered a lie, but he wasn’t about to tell the girl that they’d had a fight because she didn’t believe him when he said Bruce was alive and therefore had called Dick who had wanted to send him to Arkham.

“And me?” The fourth newcomer asked.

“Jaime Reyes, yeah?” The Blue Beetle nodded. Tim scratched the back of his neck, ignoring the way his body stretched and pulled lightly at the wound. “I mean, we’re friends I guess. We just don’t really run in the same circles. I knew Ted a little better than I know you, but we worked together on the Teen Titans for a while.”

“The team I’m a part of?” Gar asked, excitedly.

“Yeah.” Then Tim winced. “You two didn’t really hit it off well at times.”

Gar and Jaime exchanged confused looks. “Why?”

“Uh… doesn’t really matter. Doesn’t apply here anyway.” Because saying ‘over a girl and over loyalties’ wasn’t exactly something Tim thought would promote their team cohesion. Tim looked at the range of ages among the heroes and addressed his next question to Kaldur. “You’re all a team?”

“We are missing a few members as of now. Bumblebee and Guardian are currently on a mission, as are Batgirl and Lagoon Boy. And Static just isn’t here at the moment.”

“ _Guardian_? How old is Guardian if he’s on your team?”

“Around twenty. The senior members of the team are around college age while the juniors are as young as Garfield.”

Tim turned to Bart. “So you’re not technically five.”

“What? No! Why would I be five?”

Tim shook his head. “On my world you came to the past because you were aging at an alarming rate and this stopped that for a certain amount of time, but by the time you were technically five you had developed to the body of a fifteen year old… but by everyone’s expressions I’m guessing the reasoning here was different.”

“Yeah, no. I came back in time to stop the Reach.”

The Reach was… Tim closed his eyes trying to remember. Everything before Crisis (which apparently hadn’t touched whatever world this was) seemed so far away. “That’s the people who built your scarab, right?” He asked the Blue Beetle.

Jaime Reyes nodded and paused as the antenna of the scarab on his back lit up. “No, I’m not going to download his consciousness so we can see his entire life and learn all knowledge of his world, Scarab. That’s _creepy_!”

“Huh. So you do that here too.”

Jamie nodded sheepishly. M’gann stood and clapped her hands, obtaining the attention of those in the room. “Zatanna is here!” She cried and the young heroes sans Robin dashed out of the room to meet her.

“So if you guys aren’t the Teen Titans, what is the name of your team?” Tim asked.

Conner blinked slowly before turning to M’gann and Kaldur. “We… don’t have a name. We just call the team, well, The Team. We’re sort of just us, and we’re younger than most of the JLA so there’s that.”

Not that ‘young, just us’ shit again. “Creative.”

The conversation lagged in the minute it took Zatanna to walk over to the medbay with a gaggle of teenaged heroes behind her, but that was fine, Tim was tired (which wasn’t saying much because Tim’s natural state was tired) and a minute of rest was better than no rest. He jumped, startling out of his drowsy daze of almost-sleep, when the door opened and glanced up at the newcomers.

Wow. Zatanna was young.

“Zatanna, this is Tim.”

Zatanna glanced at Robin and then back at Tim, okay so she knew Robin’s secret identity too. “M’gann told me you’re from another Earth, is that true?”

Tim nodded. “Hmm…” Zatanna hummed as she surveyed Tim. She read the clipboard Kaldur had filled out and gave it back to him, returning her attention to Tim. She moved closer to him, hands hovering over his arm. “Do you mind if I touch you?” She asked.

Tim shrugged. Zatanna ran gentle fingers over his arms, then scrutinized his head and his face. “Would you mind lifting your gown? I want to see how bad the wound Kaldur marked down is.” Tim complied and Zatanna frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Tim asked.

“You’re in fragile condition. Even if I was going to send you back now you might not survive the trip. I’m not going to send you back now, obviously, you have to heal some more before we attempt cross-dimension travel, which I still have to study since I’ve never performed it without help before.”

“Timetable?” Tim asked.

“At least a week, so get comfortable.” Zatanna estimated.

Tim groaned but thanked Zatanna. “You’re welcome, Tim. Think of this week as a break from your life.” Yeah, ‘cuz that was exactly what Tim needed (he was so _close_ ). “Oh, and before I go… what was I like on your Earth?”

Was he going to get a lot of questions like this? “You were older.”

“ _Older_?”

“Yeah, like a decade or two younger than Batman.”

“I wasn’t on a team? Like this one?”

“You were never in a teenage group of heroes, at least according to my knowledge. Always JLA.”

“Huh. Thanks.” Zatanna said, waving a goodbye to the others. She crooked a finger at M’gann who followed after her, closing the door so they could talk in private.

Tim stifled a yawn, but Kaldur saw it and ordered the heroes to leave Tim to rest. Tim objected weakly, saying he wasn’t that tired and a little more talking wouldn’t hurt (but it might, Tim just didn’t want to say that) but Kaldur would have none of it and the medbay was emptied of all healthy occupants. With no distractions of this new world which Tim would live in until he was safe to travel Tim closed his eyes, breathing deeply. The drugs weighed down his head until there was nothing but them and the heavy slumber which fogged over Tim.

* * *

Tim woke to a hand in his, the lights in the medbay were out and more than one other set of breathing was heard. Besides for the person holding his hand there were people in the medbay. Tim blinked his eyes open and tried to sit up. The hand was rough and large—he withdrew his hand like it had been burned when he realized who held it. Wh-what was Conner (not his not his not his) doing here?

Conner rolled over and woke up with a hum. Tim could see his vague outline, he blinked and rubbed his eyes. Conner flicked on the reading light attached to the back of Tim’s hospital bed. “You’re awake.”

Tim just stared at him, trying not to drown in his pillows and blankets (warm…. Soft….).

“Tim? Are you okay?”

“You-you were holding my hand.” Tim whispered.

Conner looked confused. He glanced down at his now empty hand. Tim’s was clammy from the heat of the half-Kryptonian and he rubbed it against the fabric of his gown. “Oh. Yeah.” Conner acknowledged. “You…” Conner blushed in the dim florescent light. “I was checking in on you and you were having a nightmare. You were…” It was as if Conner had started a thought but then quickly skipped over the rest of it, “I held your hand and you started to calm down. I guess I fell asleep.”

Tim didn’t respond. Conner frowned. “Are-are you okay? The nightmare seemed pretty bad.”

It had been, at least the parts Tim remembered. When he dreamed these days they were usually nightmares about Kon or Bart or, on double feature days, both. His dad had made guest appearances before, and Steph haunted all of them in the back. “Nothing. It was nothing.” Tim assured Conner, plastering a smile to his face.

Tim didn’t know what it was about this Conner but he seemed… skeptical. Not just of Tim but of almost every Tim said or did, as if he knew Tim was hiding things, as if he knew _what_ Tim was hiding.

Which he couldn’t. Tim may have been a bad liar but Conner knew almost nothing about him so how could he know if Tim was lying.

“Do you want me to stay here tonight?” Conner asked.

Tim shook his head. “Go to bed.” Tim urged. “If you stay here you’ll wake up with a crick in your neck.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine.” Tim promised. Conner gave him that skeptical look again and stood, leaving the medbay and Tim.

Tim waited until he was sure Conner was gone and grabbed his IV pole, leaving the medicine in his head despite the fogginess over his brain. He dragged the IV with him, leaning on the pole when needed. Getting to the door took longer than Tim would have liked but he hadn’t needed to sit down to rest on the way there, which was an improvement. He rested in a chair by the door for a little and then stood again. Over the course of what felt like a lifetime but was actually two and a half hours he made it from the medbay, up the stairs of the Watchtower and to one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows. Once there Tim sat with a _thump_ (thankfully his IV tube was long enough that he didn’t have to hold up his arm to keep it from pulling out of his body) and just stared. That was one of the best things about these windows, he always thought, through them he could see the world. Not how the villains made it. Not how the heroes hoped for. But how it really was.

“How did you get here?” A voice asked. Tim knew the owner, Kalder’ahm.

“I walked.”

“In your condition?”

“It took a while.”

Kaldur walked over to Tim and sat down next to him, staring out into space. “It is very beautiful.”

“Nothing like it.”

“Is Conner still in the infirmary?”

“You knew he was there?”

“I went to check on you and saw him holding your hand. You both seemed asleep and at peace, I did not see the benefit in waking either of you.”

“I sent him back to his room.”

Kaldur raised an eyebrow. “For his own well-being or so you could escape?” Tim didn’t respond. “Why here?”

“I like space.”

Kaldur grinned. “Don’t we all?”

They just sat there for a while, both staring silently out into space. They watched as the Watchtower rotated, as the world spun. By the time Kaldur spoke again the sun was glaring into half of the window, and the lights on the Watchtower had begun to buzz with a low, dim energy, as if they were simulating the coming of dawn themselves. “Tim, I wish for you to know, as long as you stay here, you have a home with the team. Even if only for a week.”

“Thank you Kaldur’ahm.”

“May I help you back to the medical recovery room?”

“Sure.” Tim said thought he really didn’t feel like moving, much less moving all the way back to the medbay. But Kaldur was more than gentle when helping him up, and he propped Tim up helpfully while the injured hero walked. He helped Tim back into bed and Tim fell back into his haze of sleep.

* * *

Days passed in a flurry of sleep (almost always starting out as nightmares, it only took a while for Conner to learn that Tim couldn’t sleep without his hand which Tim wouldn’t admit on threat of death), sustenance, excited heroes and also some not-so-excited heroes (Green Arrow seemed less than pleased to learn of Tim’s arrival where as Tim thought Captain Marvel might explode from giddiness), physical therapy (which mainly contained skills such as washing without causing pain, walking without support, being able to pull himself up by his arms without opening stitches, things like that), and an unsurprising lack of this universe’s Batman. Though he did meet the Batgirl of The Team (Barbara Gordon), from her he learned who exactly had died and who the previous leader had been (what could he say, after what Tim had done when Kon died, he couldn’t really blame their Dick). He met the other members of the Team (as it turned out the Guardian on this Earth was… the Herald? Which was confusing for Tim but not nearly as confusing as it was for Mal when Tim had to explain the Herald’s powers on his Earth, “you have a trumpet which sorta creates rifts in time and space…”) and gained a pretty good background knowledge of the group. It helped that he liked to watch them spar (as he wasn’t allowed to participate himself). He learned a lot from them that way.

Robin was dating Wonder Girl (which Tim had laughed at originally but hadn’t explained why when Gar asked him). M’gann and Conner _had_ dated, but it had ended badly and now they were friends again. Nightwing (who Tim still hadn’t met, but didn’t expect to) had apparently dated almost every girl around that was his age (it squicked Tim out to know that he’d dated Zatanna because, well the Zatanna that he was used to was _old_ ). M’gann had dated Lagoon Boy and Lagoon Boy was jealous of Conner (at least while M’gann and Laga’an dated, though the Atlantean still seemed pretty antagonistic towards the boy with the S-shield). Conner was still biologically sixteen despite being legally twenty-two (cocka-doodle-doo, huh Kon?). Karen and Mal were dating, but they hadn’t spent much time together in the past year because Mal hadn’t been able to go onto missions without an identity until recently. No one knew if Batgirl was dating Nightwing, but Batgirl denied it (Tim knew that twinkle in her eye though, it didn’t matter what universe he was in, Barbara and Dick were soul-mates in that way). The senior members (as they were called) were M’gann, Conner, and Kaldur and that was seen through their fighting style. Unlike their teammates they were skilled, they’d seen years of combat. Robin was still too new and while he could hold his own against of the three senior members he couldn’t win. Not yet. But Tim watched them groom him to take Kaldur’s place (despite Laga’an’s annoyance). Tim had met their Super-cycle (they called her Sphere here) and Conner had been surprised that Tim had been excited to see her. Tim explained his adventures with his Super-cycle and Conner had had a little trouble with the she-had-a-baby thing, but so had Tim at the time so he couldn’t blame Conner.

Watching the Team spar made Tim restless. His hands itched for his bo staff, his hair longed to be pulled back into his mask, he felt naked without his belt. His suit had been ruining in his fight with the nameless sorceress, as well as sliced through where Tim had a wound. Batgirl promised she would fix it or find someone who would (Tim had a feeling that that someone was their Alfred). Apparently it was taking longer than it would have because Tim’s uniform was complied in such a fashion that whoever was fixing it had to find a way to patch it seamlessly, but they didn’t have enough materials. Tim had argued, saying it didn’t really matter how they fixed it as long it wasn’t patched with cotton, but Batgirl (or their Alfred) was insistent that they get the job right, so Tim was suitless.

Which was fine, because Tim wasn’t fighting.

He _wasn’t._

And that bothered Tim more than a rush patch job would have.

“Who’re you?” Someone asked. They had a husky voice. Tim turned to see a blonde woman in an orange and brown mask and body armor.

“Name’s Red Robin, but everyone here knows me as Tim.” She raised her manicured eyebrows which peeked out of the edge of her cat-shaped mask. Hmm… cat shaped mask, orange and brown coloring, no spots… Garfield (he couldn’t call him Gar, he was so different from the Gar in his head) had told Tim about another senior member (there apparently had been many more but only three were still left on the Team) who had taken on the theme of a tiger. “Tigeress, right?”

She nodded, and sat down next to Tim. “Artemis, Artemis Crock.”

“And you aren’t arrow themed?” Tim asked. She gave him a look and Tim explained the reasoning behind his statement. “I mean with a name like Artemis-“

“I used to be. A long time ago.” She stared down at her hands. Tim snorted. She looked up at him. “What?” She asked defensively.

“Nothing, you just remind me of an old friend of mine.”

“Oh yeah? Good with arrows?”

“The best. She quit the life, became an Olympic Archer. I haven’t seen her in only a few years but it feels like decades.”

“Then maybe you should visit her.”

“Maybe I will, when I get back.” Artemis looked confused. “You, do know I’m not from this Earth, right?”

“Oh! You’re _that_ Tim. Yeah, Batgirl told me.” They fell into a comfortable silence before Artemis said, “I bet you’re really tired about hearing the question, but what was I like on your Earth?”

Tim scoured his memory for a blonde archer named Artemis but came up blank. “You’re not an Amazon, are you?” Artemis shook her head. “I don’t think there was one of you on my Earth, unless of course, you’re the alternate of Cissie, which makes sense given how you remind me of her.”

“This Cissie is the Olympic Archer?”

“Yeah.”

Artemis smiled. “I think I can accept that.” The match in the practice ring ended (Kaldur’ahm versus Laga’an and Jaime) and Artemis stood, waving over Kaldur. The two of them spoke quietly and then Kaldur walked over to his gym bag and dug around for something. He handed it to her, it looked like some sort of plastic card (Credit?) and she waved a goodbye before leaving. On her way out of the gym she called, “Bye Tim. Nice meeting you.” Tim noticed that when she called his name Robin also turned. He would need to work on that.

“Same to you.” Tim called back.

Soon Tim could do everything but spar (and that was only because the members of the Team were worried he’d split a stitch or a scab, not that he _would._ Well, not that he would _purposely_. Well not that he would purposely for _intent to seriously hurt himself_. Well not that he would purposely for intent to-) and his suit was finally ready. It was time to send Tim Drake, also known as Red Robin, home.

Tim put on his suit, checking to make sure it still fit and was well stocked (it was actually better stocked than it had been before Tim had arrived on this Earth, thanks this world’s Alfred). Tim pushed back one last piece of hair into his cowl (Conner had complained over the week that Tim should cut it, Tim wouldn’t). He thanked everyone for their hospitality. Gar looked like he was going to cry when Tim said goodbye. Cassie punched Tim in the arm good-naturedly and Robin shook his hand, whispering Tim well-wishes in his ear. M’gann hugged Tim tightly and Kaldur clapped him on the back in a way that Tim could only take as brotherly. Conner told him to keep safe.

Tim stepped into the circle of runes that Zatanna and Doctor Fate (who was apparently hosted by Zatara on this world) had set up and he stood there while they worked. They mumbled spells and enchantments and Zatanna finally told Tim to close his eyes, and picture where he wanted to appear. Tim pictured Paris, dirty and stinky. The same day he’d left only outside of the catacombs he’d been in. He had been in between two large Paris apartment buildings, a small strip of sunlight had leaked into the alley at the angle of the setting sun. Tim pictured this place and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“Is something supposed to happen?” Garfield asked in a not-whisper.

Zatanna shushed him and concentrated harder. Still, nothing happened.

Now even Tim was slightly unnerved by the lack of being transported to another dimension. He blinked open one eye to make sure his other senses weren’t failing him (they weren’t).

“Is this… normal?” Conner asked.

Finally with a groan Zatanna and Doctor Fate stopped concentrating. “Sorry, Tim. I guess you’re going to stay with us a little longer until we figure out what went wrong with this spell.”

Tim stepped out of the rune circle somewhat disappointed. “How long do you think that will take you?” Tim asked.

Zatanna frowned as Doctor Fate cleaned the runes from the floor. “It mainly depends on what the problem is. We might not be able to get you home depending on how the spell works, and since we don’t have a copy of it we can’t be certain until we run a few tests. Or we might have just written a rune wrong.”

“So you’re saying you might never be able to send me home or you can send me home in a couple minutes.”

“Yes.”

“Lovely.”

“I would not recommend expecting the quickest answer. It is more probable that the mistake, if there is one, will take a week or so to locate and fix.” Doctor Fate said.

Tim sighed and swung his gloved hands at his sides awkwardly. “Well, I guess you guys are stuck with me for now.” He addressed the Team.

“Tim? Is your suit supposed to look like Doctor Mid-Nite’s?” Garfield asked loudly.

Tim rolled his eyes behind his cowl. This would be a long week.

* * *

Two days after Tim was supposed to leave this Earth, Conner woke up to air when he tightened his hand. Tim was gone. Great. Conner stood and cracked his back, the resounding noise was less than encouraging. He walked out of the infirmary (if Tim was staying longer they would need to assign him his own room, with a real bed and a closet and everything) with his hands shoved in his pockets. It was early Metropolis time which meant it was early Watchtower time. Conner closed his eyes and listened for the sound of the dimension traveler’s breathing. He followed the sound to gym which should have been empty at this time as everyone was asleep.

Except Tim apparently.

Conner watched as Tim attacked a group of practice dummies with a terrifying amount of force. He didn’t wear his uniform, instead he had been allowed to borrow (from Laga’an as the boy was closest in size to Tim) a pair of sweatpants and a tank top. Tim held no weapons in his hand but a staff had been placed on the edge of the ring as if Tim was worried he’d need it. He seemed to be doing fine on his own, though. Which, while it made Conner happy, concerned Conner slightly. Was he ignoring the pain from his wound? What if it broke open? What if one of the dummies hit it?

While these fears swam through Conner’s mind he had to admit Tim was incredible. He clearly was more skilled than his Robin. He had a lot of Dick’s style slathered into his own, the flips and pivots he used to fight Conner’s Robin was clearly a while away from learning. And while some of the moves were Dick’s they had that… Tim-ness to them. Tim didn’t show them off, instead any acrobatics he used was purely to turn one robot on another so they punched what they thought was him, only so that he would move at the last second and they would pummel the one behind him. There was a kind of rhythm to it, making it seem more like a dance than anything else. The dummies were supposed to be learning dummies and yet they fell for the trick almost every time. By the time one had figured out the pattern to his attacks (the steps, if you will) they would already be beaten to a point where it wouldn’t matter. This went on until there was only one dummy left. It grabbed at Tim and Tim ducked under the hand to kick it in the mechanical kneecap. It buckled but kept coming and Tim hooked one of his legs around one of its and the two went toppling to the floor. Conner took one step forward to help before he restrained himself. Tim wasn’t in trouble, he could take care of himself when it came to training dummies. Couldn’t he? He had certainly been a hero long enough that he should have been able.

That small part of Conner’s mind nagged him: _yeah, but he’s still healing. You shouldn’t have let him leave without waking you up as it is_. The other parts of Conner’s mind disagreed vehemently. _Look how at home he is_! They cried. _Look at that duck and twist! Look at that right hook! Look at the way he never stays in one place for a long time! Look at that smile you’ve never seen before on his face!_

Tim brought the last dummy down with a heavy crash and he stood looking around himself triumphantly. He would have stayed looking triumphant too; sweat dripped from his hair, plastering it to the back of his neck. The sweat wet his white shirt, which stuck to him tighter than spandex ever would. His hands flexed and relaxed as he stretched them. He stretched his arms, pulling them into positions around his head as he scrutinized his fallen enemies. For what? Conner didn’t know. Finally he took a deep breath and a swig of a water bottle he had found somewhere. Then he collapsed to the floor. Conner rushed over to him, crying out his name.

Tim grinned between jet-black locks of hair. “Aw, you’re worried about me.” He teased. Conner rolled his eyes and helped Tim sit up in the center of the ring.

“You could have gotten yourself hurt!”

“I’m fine.” Tim waved off Conner’s concern.

“No you’re not, your skin is clammy and your face is pink. Drink some water. Let me check your bandages.” Conner pulled up his shirt and was surprised to see only a small amount of brown colored blood on them.

Tim pushed Conner away from him, a laugh of exasperation bubbling from his lips. “I’m _fine_ , Kon.”

The word had slipped out and Conner almost missed the difference between that and his name. Except no one had ever called Conner ‘Con’ before, but he’d heard the word _Kon_ before. He’d heard it between hushed whimpers during Tim’s nightmares.

“Who’s Kon?” Conner asked.

Tim’s eyes widened. “I didn’t say ‘Kon’.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No.” Tim argued shortly. “I didn’t. I said Conner, you must have misheard.”

But both of them knew that Kryptonians didn’t _mishear_ anything, ever. “Tim…”

“He was someone from home. Okay? End of discussion.” Except it wasn’t. Tim whispered that name between sobs in his sleep, he spoke of this Kon in past tense, just like he had when he’d first met Conner. When he’d thought that Conner had been alive, which was weird because the only reason Conner wouldn’t be alive and it would be noteworthy enough to say aloud would be if he was not.

If he wasn’t alive.

Had-had Conner (this ‘Kon’) had he died on Tim’s world?

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about him, Tim?”

“Yes.”

Okay then. “Drink some more water.” Conner ordered. Tim raised an eyebrow at him but put the bottle to his chapped lips and drank like he’d been in a desert for days without hydration. When he’d drained the bottle he wiped excess liquid from his lips and stood again, his knees stronger than they had been before.

“How do we clean this place of targets?” Tim asked. It was probably one of the first times he’d used or seen a dummy in action on this earth, as the Team usually sparred against other team members.

Conner told Tim to get off of the ring and he pushed all of the pieces of broken dummy onto said ring. Tim did as he was told and Conner ordered the computer to clean off the ring. The metal machinery glowed for a second before melting into nothing. “Woah.” Tim said, eyes wide. “Cool.”

“Yeah.” Conner agreed.

Tim walked over to Conner and held out his wrists as if he was waiting to be handcuffed. “Take me away officer.”

“Huh?”

Tim dropped his hands. “Wait, you didn’t come here to make sure my bandages were clean and take me back to the medbay with a stern lecture about fighting a hoard of dummies in my pajamas?”

“If you had gotten hurt doing that then I would have. But you didn’t, which means you’ve either healed enough that you can begin getting back out in the field or you can fake it really well. I was actually wondering if you’d maybe like a real sparring partner.”

Tim smirked a smirk that if Conner didn’t already associate a version of it with Robin he would have associated it with Tim. Because it was just so… _Tim_. He stretched again, slowly. Conner watched as each muscle in his arm strained, flexed, and relaxed.

“Not going to stretch? Cocky?” Tim asked.

Conner didn’t respond. He just watched Tim ready himself for the fight. He walked into the ring and cracked his knuckles. “Here are the rules. First to be considered a loser by the computer is first to lose.”

“What does the computer consider a loser?”

Conner shrugged. “It depends on things like how hard they hit the floor, how hard you punch them, stuff like that.”

Tim nodded and Conner set up the computer so that it would declare a victor. Conner was the first to attack. He sent a punch at Tim and Tim ducked. Tim swept at Conner’s leg and Conner jumped over it. He landed with a thud and swung a leg at Tim and the hero blocked it snapping his own kick out, shoving Conner onto his behind. Tim dove to attack but Conner used his upper body strength to flip his legs up and over his head. He landed safely away from Tim and his feet stung when he landed despite his invulnerability.

“That’s a sweet move. Learn that from Nightwing?” Tim asked as they sparred.

“Yeah. Taught us all some stuff. Yours?”

Tim ducked under a swing and danced away from a blow that would have put a crater in the training room floor if it had not been made to withstand the force of a Kryptonian. “Everything I know.” Tim flicked his wrist, tossing Conner’s fist aside, and jabbed at Conner’s neck, making him stumble away from Tim and clutch his throat to try and breathe. “Well,” Tim admitted, “almost.”

Tim let Conner figure out again how to breathe and the man stared up at him when he was done. “You didn’t finish the job?” He asked confused.

Tim shrugged. “We’re barely even sweating, what fun would ending it now be?” Conner smiled, not a grin, not menacing, not smirking, just nicely. He smiled as if he was happy. Conner raised his fists again and they were back at it. The fight—dancing around one another and until one slipped up—was how they communicated for about an hour and a half. They fought in silence, only sounds the shuffles of footsteps and grunts of exertion. As they fought they learned about one another.

Tim learned that Conner restrained himself. He never used his full power, was he afraid of hurting someone? He was careful where he stepped. But every now and then he would stare at Tim, figuring out his next move in less than a half of a second and Tim would see those eyes spark red and he would know. He would know that Superboy could win but he wouldn’t. Tim saw Kon in Conner and Tim knew that just like Kon, Tim could beat Conner.

So he did.

When the fight was over Conner lay on the ground catching his breath. Tim was glad on some level that the fight was over because his body hurt from disuse and he was sure he had pulled a stitch in the last move. Not that he would tell Conner that.

“How long have you two been up?” Karen Beecher asked. Cassie stood behind her.

“Couple hours.” Tim responded. “You just got up?”

Karen nodded. She and Cassie were dressed in exercise clothes, towels draped over their shoulders, bottles of water in their hands. “I didn’t know you were able to spar.”

Conner rolled to his feet. “He’s not.”

“Hey! I beat _you_!” Tim argued, crossing his arms.

Conner narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, and I bet you’re also in immense pain too.”

“Immense is an exaggeration.” Tim mumbled. Sure his underbelly ached, and he couldn’t straighten his back without shots of pain, but it wasn’t _unbearable_. “I’ve had worse.”

The three heroes widened their eyes. “You-you know that isn’t a good thing, right?” Cassie asked. Karen glared at her and the blonde blushed.

“Yeah. I know, but when you’re on our job track it’s not exactly unavoidable or irregular.”

“Well if you’re up for another round, I’d be happy to-“

“Tim is going back to the infirmary.”

“Aww,” Tim teased, “but you were so happy about me staying here before I beat you. Is this payback?”

“Would you go back willingly if it was?”

“No.”

Conner sighed. “At least let’s go to the cafeteria, you’ve lost some weight in the week you’ve been lying in bed.”

“Okay, Mom.” Tim relented. Cassie and Karen giggled at the face Conner made.

“Mom?” He asked pained. “Really? _Mom_?”

Tim smirked and started walking towards the twenty-four hour cafeteria in the Watchtower. “Coming?” He asked.

* * *

By the time that Tim finished eating the rest of the Team had woken up and had made their way to either the cafeteria for breakfast or to the training room for an early morning workout. Tim and Conner were joined by Laga’an and Kaldur. Laga’an had been regaling the Team leader of his latest tales of an Earth girl he’d been dating. Apparently Lagoon Boy was one to kiss and tell. He reminded Tim a little of Gar, to be honest. Laga’an finished his story and Kaldur turned to Conner, telling him the agenda for the Team today. “-so since Alpha will be in Gotham I figured Robin should take point.”

Conner nodded as he peeled slices of orange apart. “But then someone will need to lead Beta.” Conner replied, popping one in his mouth. “You know that Bart, Gar, and Virgil need a leader.”

“I could do it.” Laga’an offered hopefully. “I-“

But Kaldur shot him down. “We need you for the Poseidonis mission.”

“What about Cassie?” Tim offered. The three heroes turned to look at him, confused. “Well, I’d offer myself if you’re so desperate but Conner won’t let that fly, so why not Cassie? She’s a great leader.”

Laga’an burst out in laughter. “Dude, have you _met_ Cassie? She couldn’t lead a team to save her life!”

“Oh. Well, she did pretty amazingly on my world, I guess I figured she’d be the same here.” Tim said with a shrug. “Nevermind then.”

“Cassie led a team on your world?”

“A couple of them actually. She was really good at it too. Young Justice was way better under her leadership than it was under mine.”

“Young Justice?”

“It was sort of like your team here, but we never worked at the Watchtower and we had a slightly different reason for existing than you guys. I was the leader at first… well, after Kon got over it I was, then I left and Cassie became leader then I came back and we had a vote and Cassie stayed leader… it’s a long story.”

Kaldur’ahm nodded understandingly. “Wonder Girl leading a team…” He mused.

Laga’an’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped open, displaying half chewed breakfast. “You’re not seriously considering that. Are you?”

“Why not? With training I’m sure she would be a great leader.”

“We are talking about the _same_ Cassie, right?”

“Cassie?” Bart, Jaime, and Robin had passed the table at that moment. “What about Cassie?” Bart asked.

“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Kaldur assured the boys, “just a hypothetical.” All but Robin looked satisfied with the answer, but they all wandered off to their own table.

“In any case, Cassie isn’t qualified enough to lead Beta this time ‘round.” Conner said with a shrug.

“I agree, for this mission the subject is mute. But we still have the problem of a leaderless squad. We could ask Artemis.”

Conner frowned. “She’s still busy with… you know. Why not Mal?”

“He’s been in the field less than Blue Beetle has.”

“But he’s mature and he’s audited enough for experience.” Conner pointed out.

“Hmm… A fair point. Alright, Mal is point for Beta Squad.”

Kaldur had gone through most of the active team members, assigning them to missions. He had outlined three: Alpha comprised of Robin, Bumblebee, and Blue Beetle; Beta was Beast Boy, Static, Kid Flash and apparently now Guardian; Gamma was Miss Martian, Aqualad, and Lagoon Boy. “What about Cassie, Batgirl, and you?” Tim asked. “No missions for you guys?”

“Nah, we got the short stick and have to babysit you.” Conner joked.

“Aw, I’m touched.” Tim responded. He stood and stretched. “I’m going to shower and change wound dressings. Want to watch and make sure I don’t spontaneously burst an appendix without assistance, or do you trust me?” Tim asked Conner. Tim walked off to the infirmary.

Conner rolled his eyes. “I’ll meet you in the training room in an hour and a half.” Conner called after him.

Once Tim got to the medbay, he showered and re-taped the bandages. “That’s a nasty cut.” Tim looked up to see Black Canary sitting in a chair by the door. She was sewing up a cut in her foot, boot removed, but her eyes were on Tim’s own wound.

“Same for you. Ninja?” Tim asked.

Black Canary grinned. “Sadly, no. Just a mugger and a nasty misplaced kick. He had a knife and it went right through the seam of my boot. You?”

“Wish I knew. I lost a little too much blood to remember. I was also busy running from my life.” Tim held out a hand. “Tim.”

“I know.” She shook the hand and returned to her sewing. “You’re from another world.”

“It’s actually more common than you’d think.”

“Really?” She finished sewing her foot and taped a piece of gauze on the gash. “I bet you’re tired of hearing the question...”

“You were really badass and best friends with Batgirl. Plus, pretty awesome.”

Black Canary smiled. “Thank you. Now, may I ask, what do you plan to do while Zatanna and Doctor Fate are working on getting you home?”

“I figured I’d train, maybe go on a few missions with the team.” Tim said.

“Train? Are you any good? You know these kids work themselves to death in the field.”

“I hope I am. Otherwise I’m going to have to talk to Superboy about going easy on me.”

“Superboy, huh? I underestimated you.”

“I would love to test my mettle against you, Black Canary. You’re a legend on any Earth. After your foot heals, of course.”

Black Canary smiled. “Yeah. I’d love to. Make sure that cut scars properly, otherwise you won’t stand a chance.”

“It was good to meet you, Black Canary.”

“You too, Tim Drake.”

Tim left the infirmary, and walked back to the training room. Superboy and Wonder Girl were in the midst of a session which seemed to consist of Conner showing Cassie moves that threw her across the room and then have Cassie try them on him. Batgirl sat on the balance beam, a soligraphic keyboard in under her fingers, a handful of screens in the air above the keyboard. She stared at them intently, eyes flitting from one to the other. Tim hopped up next to her and glanced at the screens.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just… LexCorp?”

Batgirl smiled slightly. “I needed something and they didn’t give it to me when I asked nicely.”

Tim snorted. “Computer, keyboard please.”

“Hey! These are my cases.”

“I meant to ask you… any you don’t feel like working on?”

Despite the fact that he couldn’t see her eyebrows he was sure she was raising one. “You sure? Don’t want you to have any you’ve already done and be spoiled...” She joked.

“I’m here, I _am_ a detective. I’m bored since I’ve been grounded.”

“Sure thing, Tim. I’ll take from Batman’s stash.” She typed on her keyboard and soon a new screen appeared in front of Tim, an email browser with an email from [batgirl@jla.net](mailto:batgirl@jla.net). Tim looked surprised. “Since when did I have an email with the Justice League of America server?”

“Since ten seconds ago. By the way, your password right now is one-two-three-four.”

“Creative.” Tim teased as he changed the password and looked over the server.

“We have an email as well as personalized clouds.” Batgirl explained. “They can only be accessed from the Watchtower or other bases such as the Batcave for obvious reasons.” He opened the attachment and skimmed the four cases Batgirl sent him. “Obviously your hero name and password allow you access to your personal cloud, as soon as your screen disappears you are also automatically signed out.”

“Nice set up.” He then frowned. “These are all already solved. You gave me solved cases!”

“Whatever do you mean?” Batgirl asked innocently.

“I mean, I just solved all four of them so obviously you have too. Was this a test? Were you _testing_ me?”

Batgirl shrugged. “Just making sure...”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Now the real cases, please?”

Batgirl laughed and sent him another email. He thanked her and began to work. The case was of a drug and sex trafficking ring that had been somehow getting its product into Gotham, which was the reason it was still a case. The notes mentioned that Batman and his co-vigilantes had staked out the ports, the helipads, the airport, and they had sent out feelers into the sewers. Nothing. The drug-mule connection seemed to be either untraceable or simply non-existent.

“Hmm...” Tim pulled up a map of Gotham and pinged the city’s GPS systems, bringing up labels of certain people such as the mentioned lieutenants of the gang. Three of the fifteen recorded lieutenants were in a bar in Crime Alley, four were on pier fourteen, the other eight were spread around the city in apartment buildings or warehouses. Tim checked to see what the schedule was for pier fourteen. It seemed the pier had cargo ships, all from New Zealand docking today.

New Zealand? What the hell came from New Zealand?

Tim was halfway into the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service’s server when someone snapped their fingers in front of Tim’s face.

“What?” Tim asked, eyes never leaving his screen.

“Tim, I’ve been calling your name for five minutes.” Conner said. He sat down next to Tim and his eyes flitted across the screens. “What are-are you hacking into Australia?”

“New Zealand.” Tim corrected.

“Why?”

“Case.” Tim finished his segment of code and turned his attention to the man next to him. “What?”

“Huh?”

“You were calling me name for five minutes, right? Did you do that for a reason?”

“Oh yeah. I was wondering if you wanted take a break, you’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half.”

“I have?”

“Yeah. You-you didn’t notice when Batgirl got up and left to go back to Gotham for the day? You responded to her.”

“Oh. I sort of lose myself when I work on cases. Sorry about that.”

“Cases, huh?” Conner looked at the screens. “Is this a sign that you’re staying with us for a while?”

“No. Just one that says that I’ve got too much time on my hands. On my world I’ve got… I keep pretty busy. So here I’m just really bored,” Tim smirked at Conner, “and not going into the field isn’t helping.”

“Don’t look at me! I’m not your doctor!”

“No, but since you’ve spent so much time with me since I’ve been here I’m pretty sure Kaldur cares more about your opinion of my status than a physical and a scan from a Martian.”

“I doubt that. But of course _my_ opinion is to keep you here, you’re still healing.”

“I’ve done field work on worse before.”

“Tim...”

“No, I get it Conner. I really do. I don’t agree with you but I get it. I’m a liability with the injury.”

“And, you know, we want you to be _alive_ when we send you home.”

“Details...” Tim teased, waving a hand dismissively. “But I’d love a break. What did you have in mind?”

Conner glanced over sparring ring, and then back to Tim. Tim grinned and saved his progress as well as removing his code from the NZSIS’s servers. He flicked his wrist and the screens and keyboard disappeared. Tim stretched and he and Conner walked into the sparring ring. The fight was purely exercise based, which was good because it meant that Conner didn’t take out any ill-will because of Tim’s earlier win. Not that Tim believed Conner had any ill-will towards him, of course.

“Superboy! Tim!” The names sliced through Tim’s concentration making him slip up and let Conner send a super-powered kick that the Kryptonian was sure would miss Tim right into his side. Tim flew off of the platform, landing on his back. The computer announced Conner as the winner of the match, but he was already running over to Tim.

“Are you okay?” Conner asked.

Tim caught his breath and sat up, rubbing his back. “Yeah.” He said. “I’m fine, just slipped up. I should have dodged that...”

The person who had spoken was Zatanna. She and Doctor Fate ran over to Tim, asking if he was alright. Tim told them he was fine and asked them why they were here. “Didn’t you say it would take at least a week to find out what went wrong?” Tim asked.

“I said that _if_ there was a problem it would probably take a week to locate _and_ fix. However, Zatanna and I are in agreement. There was no mistake in our magic.”

“What do you mean? Then why am I still here?” Tim asked.

“Tim, would you allow me to preform a spell on you? Doctor Fate and I have suspicions about why the spell didn’t work, but this will prove it.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Kaldur to get back?” Conner asked.

Doctor Fate dismissed his concerns with a wave of a hand. “Kaldur’ahm will be informed upon his arrival, but I believe Timothy would rather we cement why he cannot return home now.”

Tim nodded in agreement.

“Okay...” Conner said.

Zatanna took a deep breath. “fi latrop elbisrever yb edistuo secrof wolg neerg.”

Tim looked down and blinked. “Was something supposed to happen?”

“Yeah.” Zatanna frowned. “That’s-that’s not good.”

“Why? What did you say?” Conner asked.

“As I feared.” Doctor Fate mumbled.

“Um, Tim… we can’t send you home.” Zatanna said softly.

“Why not?” Tim’s heart began to beat a little too fast for comfort, but then again that comment wasn’t in the least bit comforting.

“Timothy, this isn’t reversible. There is nothing we can do.” Doctor Fate explained gently. “You must find the woman who sent you here to send you back, otherwise you will never be able to return home.”

No. No, Fate had to be joking ~~Fate never joked~~. This couldn’t be happening. Tim had to go back. Tim _had_ to go back. He couldn’t stay. He had work to do. He couldn’t let down Bruce. He couldn’t let anyone down. Not now. Not again.

“There _has_ to be something you can do. This sorceress-I don’t even know her name. I don’t even know if she exists on this world.”

“Tim, I’m sorry. But… right now, I think you should just get comfortable here. You might not be leaving for a while.” Zatanna said.

Or ever.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He could not stay here. He couldn’t-

“Tim?” Conner was saying his name. His voice echoed in Tim’s head. “Tim, are you okay?”

No. Tim wasn’t okay. Tim wasn’t even close to okay. His heart was beating out of his chest, his breathing was heavy, his vision swam.

It was all his fault. All his fault. And now Bruce was going to stay ‘dead’ and everyone was going to think that Tim was crazy or dead (at least the ones who cared enough to wonder where he was). They were going to think that Tim wasn’t right, and Bruce would be lost forever.

Tim was going to fail him _again_.

“Tim? _Tim_? Tim, can you hear me?” Conner asked. His hands were on Tim and he looked so much like Kon, oh god Kon, _Kon Kon Kon…_ Tim had failed him too, had let him die. Tim looked up at Superboy—his eyes those eyes, he didn’t have any blood on his face, why didn’t he have blood on his face? He’d been beaten to death, he should have blood on his face ~~not his not his not his not his not his not his~~. _Not his_. Tim pulled away from Superboy ~~-Kon-~~ Conner like he’d been stung. He couldn’t—That wasn’t his Conner. His Conner was dead. His Conner who he’d spent years with, who he’d fought with on Apokolips, who he’d stayed up until the wee hours of the night talking, who he’d overdosed on junk food with while melting their brains with Wendy the Werewolf Stalker marathons.

This was not his Conner.

Tim needed to get away, he needed to be alone he needed-

“I-I have to go.” Tim mumbled, words fumbling over his tongue.

His feet were carrying him, but he wasn’t sure to where. He was sweating, hands shook, his hearing dipped in and out, he stumbled against a wall. His hand stretched out to catch him, the wall was smooth and cold and he couldn’t catch his breath.

 ~~Not his not his not his not his not his not his not his~~ Conner liked rock music but pop was his guilty pleasure and most of all he like the sun and Hawaii and pie and Cassie god he had loved Cassie and he would laugh at dumb jokes that Bart made and _breathe Tim breathe_ and it was all Tim’s fault. It was always Tim’s fault. Oh god Conner was dead and it was like the wound was fresh and he’d never be able to go back and visit his grave or memorial because Tim was stuck here forever and he had failed everyone. Again.

He was drowning in memories and he had a vague comprehension that he had starting sitting and that there was a floor beneath him and that despite the fact he was literally floating in space he also wasn’t.

But he’d still failed. He’d let anyone who may have been depending on him down.

He’d never go back home. He’d never see Dick again—he just wanted to tell him he was sorry.

Tim missed his big brother.

Tim missed his apartment. He missed his friends. He missed his work. He even missed the Hellspawn.

He missed his Dad, he missed Bruce, he missed Lucius, he missed Gotham and Metropolis. He missed the Tower and the Hotel and the Cave.

He’d never see any of it again.

  


  


What was that sound?

It sounded like his name.

“Tim?”

“Tim? Can you hear me?”

Tim nodded. That voice… he’d heard it before…

Conner. It was Conner speaking to him.

Not the Conner he grew up with, but the one he’d become friends with only recently.

Is that what they were? Friends? He hoped so. He liked Conner. He wanted them to be friends.

“Tim? Can you look at me? Do you know where you are?”

Tim glanced up, Conner seemed concerned but he was alone. Which was good, Tim didn’t want anyone to see him like this. “I’m in a parallel universe.”

“Oh. Okay. So you do know where you are.”

“I’m stuck in a parallel universe.” Tim said in an awed voice, “this really _is_ the worst year of my life.”

“I bet it’s not _that_ bad...”

“No, it’s really that bad.” The words almost made Tim want to laugh. “It is _really_ bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” _But it is mine. Most of the time._

“Do you know how long you’ve been sitting here?” Conner asked softly.

“Half an hour?” Tim guessed.

Conner shook his head. “Tim… with your… freak-out just now and the nightmares… I think you should see a therapist.”

Tim laughed. “I’m fine, Conner. Really, it’s just been a tough time for me.”

“Tim, seeing a therapist isn’t a _bad_ thing. It’s not shameful.”

“I know that,”

“I’ve done it, half the Team has done it. Black Canary… as much as I disliked our sessions, they were helpful and important. I learned a lot about myself. And it helped me work through some issues that I really needed to work through. I think she can help you.”

“N-no one can help me, Kon!” Tim said, trying (failing) to explain, “I can’t tell them! They-”

“You called me ‘Kon’ again. Tim if that isn’t a sign that you need to speak to someone, then I don’t know what is. Look, Tim if you can’t talk to them, talk to me. You can tell me anything, you know that right?”

“No-you don’t get it, Conner! I _can’t_ tell you. You’ll think I’m crazy just like the rest of them.”

“The rest of _who_? Tim, please. _Talk_ to me.”

So Tim told Conner. Not about everything, not about Kon or Bart, but he told him about his father and how he died. He told Conner about Bruce, about Dick and Damian and losing Robin. He told Conner how he couldn’t fail Bruce this time, how he didn’t know how to go on without looking for him, proving that he wasn’t crazy—that he was right. He couldn’t let someone down again.

“Well,” Conner said after Tim’s rather passionate confession, “my professional opinion? Is that you see a professional.” Tim rolled his eyes. “But I’m glad you told someone—even if that someone is me. If you ever need-”

“To talk you’re free? Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sorry about unloading on you. You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”

“That’s what friends do, right?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Conner gave Tim’s arm a gentle squeeze of reassurance.

There was a thundering of footsteps and Tim tensed. The footsteps belonged to the Team. “Tim, are you okay?” M’gann asked, looking over him.

Tim nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Why-why are you guys back so soon?”

M’gann looked from Conner to Tim with confusion then back to Conner. Conner leaned closer to Tim. “Tim,” he whispered, “you remember that it was more than half an hour, right?”

Tim’s eyes widened. “Oh. Yeah, I-I forgot.” Tim pulled away from M’gann, “I’m fine, M’gann, promise. Oh, and guess who won’t be going home anytime soon...”

Jaime’s eyes widened. “Wait—you’re not going home? But I thought it would take them a week-”

“He said ‘up to a week,’ and it turns out that they figured out the problem a little earlier. And now, Tim’s staying until further notice.” Conner explained.

“Looks like we should get you a room.” Kaldur said, grinning.

“Wooo! Tim’s gonna stay!” Garfield cheered.

Bart was just as enthusiastic. “That’s so crash!” The rest of the Team seemed to agree.

And though Tim laughed with the Team and he cheered along with them his chest felt hollow and his happiness felt fake.

* * *

“Hey Babybird, what’s up?” Tim asked as he stretched. Robin jumped at the voice, turning around to see Tim he exhaled in relief. Clearly, Tim was not someone he feared would walk through the door. To be honest Tim didn’t know who Robin was afraid of meeting as early in the morning as it was, but then again the inhabitants of the Watchtower weren’t only Young Justice and lived worldwide so ‘early’ was relative.

“Babybird?” Robin asked.

“It’s a nickname Dick gave me. I just… calling you Robin is weird for me,”

“Is it because of Damian?”

“Mainly.” Tim responded. Robin sent a heavy punch into the heavy bag and the sound of the impact echoed in the almost empty training room. He threw another punch. Then another. And another. Each impact, even the flurries of blows, rocked Tim’s ears, like a gunshot or explosion. Finally Robin took a minute to breathe. He looked at Tim with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” Robin asked.

“Nothing,” Tim said, “I just missed this me.”

“This you?”

“I mean when I was your age, ‘cuz y’know I’m not you.”

“But you are.”

“I’m an alternate you, not _really_ you. I’ve… met future ‘me’s before where that didn’t end up happening, not to _mention_ my _alternate_ mes, trust me. We’re only slightly the same person.”

“Really?” Robin asked, examining Tim. His eyes lingered on Tim’s visible scars… the one on his arm, the one from Kon… “Are we really so different?”

“I mean besides the fact that you live in an entirely different social dynamic than me-”

“I wear makeup, you know.” Tim shut his mouth, letting Robin speak, “and he doesn’t know. Dad. He doesn’t know. I don’t want him to find out, because then he’ll, do whatever he does when he feels guilty regarding me. Not that I know much about that. And Steph-she-she’s so great. She really is, but I’m, so worried about her.” Robin looked up at Tim, arms crossed over his chest. “Are you really telling me that we’re different?”

“I didn’t wear makeup for that long.” Tim said after a pause. “After I started, a while after, I started wearing makeup so he wouldn’t know, so my friends wouldn’t figure it out. And I didn’t want him to know either, not that that did me any good. And of course, Steph… Steph is a whole subject unto herself.”

Robin raised an eyebrow.

“And yes,” Tim conceded, “that sounds like… like we’re fated to end up the same. But we’re not, I swear we’re not. You can’t think that I am your future. Please, Babybird, please make sure I’m not. What happens, or has happened, to me? That is me. That is on me. Never believe it to be prophesy. You are you, and what happened to me probably won’t repeat itself, especially to you.”

“How can you be sure? Tim, you’re so… sad. The nightmares and what happened yesterday… Conner didn’t tell me, I guessed. I don’t...” He said desperately. He didn’t need to finish his sentence.

“Statistically the amount of similarities we have already is a hell of a lot. Having more, including future ones, would be astronomical. But Tim,” Tim used Robin’s name in an attempt to impress his point, “you make your future. You always have and you always will.”

“Uh-huh.” Robin agreed, though he didn’t sound too confident in his words. Robin clenched his fists, as if he could punch his possible future into submission.

“How about a healthy spar to get impending destinies or lack thereof out of your mind?”

Robin gave Tim a weak smile and he motioned to the ring. “Age before beauty.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Now I know you’re feeling more secure. You’re making jokes.”

“How do you know that? Because you would do the same?”

“No, because I’ve worked with you for over the week, and I notice behaviors.”

“Well you were trained by the World’s Greatest Detective, I guess.”

Tim laughed. “Funny, I had a friend who would have said the same thing. Only, he would have teased me about it.”

“I can’t tease you about _that_ , it’s another thing we have in common.”

“ _He_ cares about you too, you know.” Tim added. Robin didn’t respond.

Robin was the first to attack, sending a kick at Tim. “I thought you said that I shouldn’t take your life experiences as inevitable.”

 _Yeah, ‘cuz that’s a life experience I have._ “Whoever said it was?”

“Tim...”

“I’m teasing. But you know he does, right?”

“Yeah. Nightwing told me that a lot. Whenever he didn’t.”

“So a lot.”

Robin smiled softly before ducking a punch Tim sent at him. Robin kicked at Tim again who blocked and flipped his opponent into the floor with a loud _smack_! The computer announced Tim as winner of the bout and Tim helped Robin up.

“Wow. Where’d you learn that?”

“I have… a partner of sorts. She’s the best martial artist I know. She taught me a lot.”

“Will I ever meet a version of her?”

“I hope so. Again?” Tim asked.

“Can-Can you show me that move?”

Tim grinned. “You just want to flip me, don’t you?”

“Maaaaybe.” Robin hummed.

Tim laughed aloud. “Sure thing, Babybird. So stand over here and...” Tim explained patiently. He explained which kicks or punches initiated the move, which defenses could be used against it. He explained the physics of the move (well _he_ thought it was interesting) and how it could be used against metas or aliens (depending, of course, on their physiology). Robin actually seemed interested in the applications of the move and wasn’t impatient when it came to learning the move bit by bit. He even seemed enthusiastic when Tim went on tangents. Eventually they finished the exposition of the move and it was time for Robin to try it.

Robin went through the motion of the move gently, swaying on the balls of his feet until he felt ready to try it on a person. Finally he nodded Tim and Tim sent him a kick to which Robin counterattacked. While not flawless, the move was still done well. Better than Tim had the first time he’d tried it on a person. Tim told him to try it again, and they did. They did it until Robin was comfortable which meant that Tim would have to be thrown against the ground for more or less an hour. Finally Robin grinned at Tim.

“I think I got it!”

 _Thank god_. Tim called for a break (who knew being thrown against the ground would be tiring). By now Tim had worked up an appetite and he and Robin went down to the cafeteria for a quick snack.

“You’re awake early.” Kaldur said.

Robin smiled at the Team leader. “Tim showed me a really cool flip.”

“You are well enough to teach?” Kaldur asked interested.

Tim blushed. “It’s not really teaching, just one move.”

“Still, very impressive.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Does this mean I get to go out into the field?”

Kaldur laughed one of those full-hearted laughs. “We’ll see.”

Robin patted Tim on the shoulder. “Better luck next time.” They sat down to eat and once they were satisfied they went back to the gym. However, before they could begin another sparring lesson they were interrupted by Conner jogging over.

“Tim,” Both Robin and Tim turned to look at Conner, despite knowing it was the other-worlder that Conner was referring to, “come with me, I want to show you your new room.”

“My… what?”

“Your new room. You can’t stay in the infirmary forever. The Team has their own wing, and now you have a room there.”

Robin nudged Tim to follow Conner. Conner led Tim to the Team’s wing of the Watchtower. Conner led Tim past room after room until they reached a dead end. Conner opened the last door, and waved a hand in. “Your room.”

Tim stepped in and Conner turned on the lights. It was a large bedroom that resembled an average hotel room if Tim has to be honest. A closet was on his right with full length mirrors on the doors. Behind them were the two night-tables which had a rather large bed between them. On his left was a bathroom, beyond that, by the end of his room was a desk with a table lamp and a swivel chair. “You can’t access the soligram computers here, but we’ll get you a laptop.” Conner said. At the other end of the room the curtains were drawn. Tim walked over, hands brushing against the soft cotton fabric.

“What’s behind here?” Tim asked.

Conner grinned. “See for yourself.”

Without hesitation Tim pulled back the curtain. “Wow.” Sometimes Tim’s life was really cool. I mean, how many other people could say they could see space from their windows? … Well obviously everyone else who lived in space, but still, it was pretty cool.

And it was beautiful.

“Yeah, the room’s not much but the view makes up for it.” Conner said.

Tim could see Earth, he could see more than just Earth too. He could see stars in the distance and he could see Venus and Mercury too. “Wow.” Tim said again.

“So what do you think?” Conner asked.

Tim turned to look at Conner. Conner was staring out the window, his eyes flitting from side to side, taking in the view of the universe. His black hair spiked up (up) and away from his face, his mouth were curved into a slight smile, lips slightly spread apart. He looked calm, relaxed. “Wow.” Tim repeated.

Finally Conner looked back at Tim. “I’m right next door if you need anything. And Gar is across the hall, sorry there wasn’t anything I could do about that.”

Tim laughed. “It’s alright. But, now that I have my own room, does that mean you’re no longer going to hold my hand at night?” Tim teased.

Conner smirked. “You seemed pretty okay with me holding your hand when you first got here. Have the nightmares gotten better?”

“Yeah, they have. But don’t flatter yourself, that’s got nothing to do with you.”

“I wouldn’t even suggest such a thing.” Conner said, hands up in surrender.

Tim smiled at him as he looked back out over the view. Tim hadn’t even realized he was staring at Conner’s profile until he looked back with a confused expression. “Something on my face?” Conner asked.

“No, but I was wondering, ever feel the sudden urge to get an ear piercing?”

That made Conner both laugh and cringe. “Thank God, no.”

Teasing Conner was easy. It was also fun. He really wasn’t anything like Kon had been, in either of his stages. Though Tim was really glad Conner hadn’t apparently gone through a ‘90s’ phase. “Are you sure? I’m positive that a gold hoop would look just fabulous.”

* * *

“-and finally Wonder Girl, Robin, and Blue Beetle, you will be Delta Squad being led by Robin. The mission is a LexCorp mission. Just recon, no explosions. _Please_ , no explosions. Robin, details are being sent to your wrist-computer. Be discreet. That is all, Team dismissed.” Kaldur’ahm explained. However, his instructions fell on deaf ears because Team had stopped listening to him about five minutes ago. They were all staring at Batman who stood tall and silent, almost like he wasn’t there at all.

Kaldur seemed to have finally noticed this and he turned to look at Batman. “Ah, you’re here.” Tim was trying really _really_ hard not to run and hug Batman. He wasn’t Tim’s Bruce. He wasn’t. He wasn’t. _He wasn’t._

“I didn’t want to interrupt.” Batman said stonily. _Bullshit_ , Tim thought, _in any universe he knows what Batman does to people if he’s in the room, that’s the_ point.

“What brings you here?” Kaldur asked. It was weird, the way they spoke. Aqualad spoke as if addressing a superior, Batman spoke as if addressing a friend. But they both spoke like leaders, giving one another the proper respect.

“I wanted to know if I could speak with Tim Drake.”

Tim felt the eyes of the Team on him. Tim shrugged. “It’s not like I have anything else to do.” He walked over to Batman, his white lenses unnervingly staring at Tim (well, unnervingly to anyone who didn’t know Bruce). “So? Lead the way.”

Batman led him to an empty conference room. “Computer: secure the room.”

“ _As you wish, Batman._ ”

“So? What do you want to kn...” Tim’s voice trailed off because Batman was undoing the safeguards on his mask. Slowly Batman slipped off the mask, and there he was, there was Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne smiled.

Tim was in his arms in another second. He hugged Tim tightly, tears rolling down his face. Bruce was petting his hair, slowly and kindly. And for a second Tim could pretend.

“I’m sorry.” Tim whispered into Bruce’s chest. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

“Tim, you shouldn’t have had to save him. He should have been the one saving you.” Bruce’s fingers were so gentle. And he was warm too. Like an actual father figure. Tim snorted at the thought.

Finally Tim pulled away wiping his eyes. “I-I know you aren’t him. I know, and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, Timothy.” Batman said softly. “It’s understandable. I had hoped this wouldn’t go too far but,”

“This?”

“You. Being here.”

Tim swallowed. Somehow he’d even failed _this_ Batman, that’s how much he sucked. “Sorry.” Tim mumbled.

“That’s not what I meant. You have no need to be sorry. But I _had_ hoped you’d be back on your world, so that you could go on with your life. So I didn’t meet you. I didn’t want to...”

“Hold me back?”

“I doubt I could do that.” Tim didn’t respond, but he let himself smile in the familiarity of the statement. “I wanted to ask you, this case, the one you sent Batgirl and let her take the credit for solving?”

He was talking about the trafficking case where the people and drugs in question seemed like they were just appearing. Tim had finished the case and moved on to the next three on his list, he was almost finished with two of those and had only skimmed the third. “Yeah?”

“Why? And how?”

“Why and how what?”

“Why did you let her take credit?”

Tim shrugged. “It’s not like you really care about my accomplishments, I’m not your Tim. As to how? On my Earth… I work for Wayne Enterprises. Catching irregularities such as a larger percentage of Slavic and Asian women hired than normal that would quit after a few scheduled business trips was just… instinct.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Thank you.”

Bruce made the barest of nods before he pulls his cowl back over his head. “Tim, I want you to know, if you never get back home you always have a place here.”

“With you?” Tim asked hopefully.

“With the Team.” Batman responded shortly. He hesitated before adding, “and, at the Cave. With us.”

A place at the Cave. He had a place at the Cave here.

Why couldn’t he have had one at home?

“You don’t have to respond.” Batman said when Tim opened his mouth to respond. “But you can… if you want...” He opened his arms slightly and Tim sprung out of the chair and back into his arms.

“Thank you.” Tim whispered.

“Batgirl seems to be attached to you. So does Robin. I think I don’t have a choice about letting you join us.” He said gruffly.

Tim rolled his eyes, tears leaking from them. “Amazing evasion. Really. A plus. If I hadn’t known a Bruce Wayne I wouldn’t have even noticed it.” He mumbled before pulling away and wiping his face.

Batman didn’t crack a smile, but Tim could tell he would have if he didn’t have an image to uphold. “I look forward to working with you. I know the Team does too.”

“They’ve been working with me for a while, B.” Tim said, hinting for Batman to elaborate.

“Yes, but I meant in the field, of course.” Batman said with that almost not there smirk that made Tim want to smile, “I assume that won’t be a problem.”

“Of course not.” Tim said in the stoic Red Robin voice he’d learned from Bruce.

“I will consult the senior members of the Team on your new status, and I hope that the next missions will have you on one of the squads.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. The Team needs you, Red Robin, and I think that the field is just the place for you. The final decision, of course, will be Kaldur’ahm’s. It _is_ his Team.”

“Well, I was getting a little stir-crazy.”

“Computer: unsecure room.” Batman stated before walking to the door.

“Bruce!” Tim said. Bruce turned around. “For everything you do or don’t, thank you.”

“Those two words seem to be the main sentiment of all you’ve said to me in this conversation.”

“You’ve done a lot for me. Why shouldn’t I thank you?”

Batman didn’t answer. Instead he walked out the door. “See you around, I guess.” Tim called after him. Tim should have known that he would evade a question by leaving a room eventually, he wasn’t very surprised.

* * *

“I’m offended. You went behind my back!” Conner said, walking into the room unannounced.

“What are we talking about?” Tim asked Conner.

Conner dropped down next to Tim on his bed, kicking off his shoes before putting his feet up on the blanket. “I’m teasing, Tim. It was weird, Batman was almost… asking us politely if you could go out on missions.”

Tim flushed, his ears and neck burned. “He didn’t have to do that.”

“I’m glad he did. As much as I hate to admit it, he made some good points.”

Tim closed his new laptop (a present from Conner, Tim was still working on his reciprocal gift). “I sense an ‘and’ coming.”

Conner rolled his eyes. “And...” He conceded, “we’re thinking of doing a trial run.”

“A trial run.”

“I’m still worried about your cut.”

“It’s only a flesh wound.”

“But still. So here’s the deal, you’ll join me and M’gann on a mission and we’ll evaluate how you do.”

“Good thing I’ve got one of my judges in my pocket then.” Tim quipped. Conner raised an eyebrow. “Not you, of course,” Tim added, “M’gann.”

Conner let out a huff of laughter. Tim smiled at him and he smiled back. “So, tell me what you’re working on.” Conner asked, looking at the screen.

“Well...” Tim began.

* * *

“What are you doing?” Kaldur asked M’gann. M’gann jumped, turning around. The hallway in the dorms was always quiet at this time, so he was surprised to see M’gann here. And M’gann’s room wasn’t down this hall.

“N-nothing.”

Kaldur raised an eyebrow. “Liar.”

M’gann blushed. “I was thinking.”

“About?”

M’gann leaned back against the wall she had been leaning on before. “What do _you_ think?”

“They’re friends.” Kaldur said automatically.

M’gann raised an eyebrow and Kaldur knew she didn’t believe him. “I’m worried. I-I don’t want him to get hurt, not like I hurt him.”

“Tim is a good man.” _And not able to manipulate minds._

“Tim needs to go _home_. Tim _has_ a home. And we’re not it, Kaldur.”

“Maybe we are. He might not be able to go home, M’gann. He might stay.”

“Might.”

“It’s not our business, M’gann. Conner knows what he’s doing.”

“I know.”

“He’ll be fine.”

M’gann took a deep breath. “I know.”

“Come. Let’s go to bed.”

M’gann nodded and followed Kaldur back down the hall to their rooms.

* * *

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod-”

“ _Dude! Shut up!_ ” Jaime hissed. Gar snapped his mouth closed.

“I don’t get it, what’s so bad?”

“It’s not _bad_ , it’s just-”

“Shh! They’re waking up!”

Conner frowned and rolled over so he could look out the door. Why were Bart, Jaime, Garfield and Virgil looking at him so weirdly?

And why was his back so warm?

Wait.

Conner slowly sat up, trying not to wake the man next to him. However, Tim did wake up and he stared confusedly at Conner for a solid minute. Finally he looked down at the blanket between them, patting it down with a concerned look on his face while the four team members stood flabbergasted in the doorway.

“Where’s my computer?” Tim mumbled, groggily and slurred.

Conner climbed out of the bed and the boys gasped before realizing that both men were fully dressed (sans shoes) and had been since they’d fallen asleep around four in the morning. “Dunno. Where’s my shoes?”

Tim whipped the blanket off the bed which revealed a loud and not very encouraging _thump_. “I hope I didn’t lose my work.” Tim said as he scrambled to retrieve the fallen laptop.

“Why are you here?” Conner asked as he pulled on his shoes.

“Robin told us to get Tim. We didn’t know _you’d_ be here.” Garfield said almost petulantly.

“Don’t you have classes today?” Virgil asked.

“What time is it?” Conner asked.

Jaime waited for a second as Scarab relayed him the information then said: “Nine thirty am in Ivy Town.”

Conner’s eyes widened, he had thirty minutes to get changed, grab his things for his class and get there. “See you later, Tim.” He said as he yanked on his other boot and dashed over to his room.

“Uh huh.” Tim responded, not actually knowing what he was responding to. Tim made sure that all of his work had been saved before focusing on the four boys still in his doorway. “What did Robin say he wanted?”

“Uh, something about wanting you to, uh...” Bart turned to Garfield. “I forgot the rest.”

Static rolled his eyes. “He wanted you to hack something.”

* * *

“Conner!” Conner cemented his feet in the ground so when Wendy eventually attacked him with a hug he wouldn’t stumble back, which turned out to be a good idea. Sometimes he wondered if Wendy actually did have super strength. “How _are_ you? I haven’t seen you in for _ever_!”

“I’ve been gone two weeks.”

“That’s still two weeks, too long.” Wendy teased.

Somehow she managed to pull the shadow of a smile onto Conner’s face. “I’m fine. You? Marvin?”

“We’re good! Hey, us and Karen and Mal are going bowling, you wanna come? You can bring somebody~”

Conner flushed. “I’m not...”

Wendy’s face fell. “Oh.” It bounced right back into a happy expression. “Well that’s alright. I mean, it’s not like Marvin and I are dating or anything. Just bring a friend… or M’gann, if, y’know, you two are still...”

“We’re on good terms.” Yet, M’gann’s face wasn’t the one who came to mind. “I mean, M’gann should come.”

“But you want to invite someone else?” Wendy asked, eyebrow raised and interest peaked. “ _Who_?”

“No one you know.”

Wendy gasped. “Am I going to meet them? _Is this going to be a meet-the-’friends’ things_?”

Conner shook his head. “Nothing like that. We’re just friends.”

“Uh huh.”

“Seriously, Wendy.”

“No, I believe you. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.” She said, doing as she said.

* * *

Someone knocked on Tim’s door. Tim looked up, smiling when he saw Conner. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Conner said. “Mind if I come in?”

“Go right ahead. Just don’t fall asleep this time.” Tim teased.

“Hey, we both fell asleep.” Conner argued. He sat next to Tim. “So… I mean, I know you don’t really leave this much-”

“Or at all?”

Conner laughed, awkwardly. “Yeah… Anyway, so a couple of friends of mine, Wendy and her friend Marvin-”

“Wendy and Marvin? You’re _kidding_ -!” Tim said laughing.

“What? Why would I-?”

Tim shook his head with a smirk. “Never mind.”

Conner raised an eyebrow but continued without pressing. “Anyway, so they were wondering if M’gann and I wanted to go bowling with them.”

“And…?”

“And I was wondering if you wanted to get some fresh air.” Conner said.

Tim stopped typing on his laptop. “Why, Superboy, are you asking me to _meet the friends_?”

“Wh-no!” Conner said, blushing. “No, it’s just a relaxed thing. Just friends. Plus you don’t get out and-”

“Relax, Conner. I’m teasing.” Tim said. Before he could respond to the invitation there was another knock on Tim’s door.

Robin stood in the doorway. “Sorry,” he said, confused as he looked from the faces of the men inside, “am I interrupting?”

“Not at all.” Tim said as Conner said: “It’s fine.”

“Um, okay. Tim, I wanted to thank you for the hacking you did earlier.”

“Of course,” Tim said with a small smile, “my pleasure to help.”

Robin left with a wave and Tim frowned. “What’s wrong?” Conner asked.

“It’s just… he thinks he’ll turn out to be me.” Tim said.

“What?”

“I know! It’s insane. There’s-there’s no way. I mean, what happened to me-it’s not gonna-the statistics are astronomical-I just-”

“He thinks he’s going to be you?”

“He… he said he sees how sad I am, and that… that he’ll become me. He denied it, but I don’t believe him.” Tim turned to Conner, looking him straight in the eyes, “you can’t let him think that, Conner. You-if I ever leave,”

“Not ‘if’, ‘when’. You’re _going_ home.” Conner insisted. “We’ll find a way, you have to believe that.”

Tim ignored Conner, not willing to hope, “ _if_ I ever leave,” Tim repeated, “I need you to watch him. Make sure what I said was true, that he doesn’t end up like me.”

“Tim, I-”

“Promise me, no matter _what_ happens. You’ll make sure he knows that someone cares about him and that someone will always believe he’s sane.”

“Tim-”

“ _Please,_ Conner, _please_ protect him.”

Conner stared at Tim. Really stared. “I promise.” He said. “I promise.”

* * *

“Guess what day it is!” Someone plowed into Tim’s bed, then another person, and yet a third.

Why were people jumping into Tim’s bed?

Tim weakly pushed the first person and groggily sat up. “What?”

“I told them not to jump on your bed.” This fourth person was leaning against the door-frame of Tim’s threshold. Tim rubbed the sleep-gunk out of his eyes and blinked, taking in the people around him. Bart had been the first to jump into his bed and the other two were Garfield and Jaime. The person currently laughing at him by the doorway was Conner.

Great.

“Enlighten me, what day is today?” Tim asked.

“Today is the day you go into the field.” Robin explained, peeking out from behind Conner.

“Oh. Yeah. It is.” Tim said softly.

“You don’t look so excited.” Jaime replied. His Scarab lit up and he glared at it. “No! Why is everything with you about killing people?”

“No. I’m excited… just… privacy would be nice. So I can change...”

“Oh.” Garfield said sitting up. “Right.”

“No, Scarab, most people don’t have their costumes grow around them.” Jaime said.

“We’ll see you downstairs in forty.” Conner said, as he pushed himself off the doorway and back into the hall.

The uninvited heroes left the room and Tim checked his utility belt before showering, then checking his belt again, and dressing and checking yet for a third time. Tim finally felt comfortable and took one last look into the closet-door-mirror before walking downstairs.

He was greeted by the rest of the Team. Bart had made a colorful sign (Bart would have been impressed, Tim thought sadly) that said Tim’s name in big sparkly letters. It did make Tim laugh though, so Bart got what he wanted and threw the sign away in a flurry of lightning.

Tim felt like a goldfish.

“Red Robin, it seems the rest of the Team is more excited for your mission than you are.” Kaldur smiled.

A sudden wave of bashfulness swept over the heroes around Tim. “What can I say, I’ve seen me on a mission before, they haven’t.”

Kaldur nodded and brought up a screen showing Paris. Ahh, Paris, what happy memories Tim had from there… like being stabbed and sent to another dimension. “This will be a retrieval and reconnaissance mission. I hope you don’t blow anything up.” The last statement sounded more like a command than a hope.

Tim frowned. “I don’t tend to without cause. Why? … Do you guys?”

Kaldur groaned. “Too often.”

“Almost every recon mission of ours ends in explosions.” M’gann admitted.

 _Nice_ , Tim thought, stifling a laugh. “Then I’ll try not to.”

“You’ll be there over night, and use the early morning as a way in. Batgirl has mapped out the entire mission, hopefully you’ll be able to follow it without improvisation.”

Hopefully…

Batgirl began speaking. “The gang you will be collecting information on has cells in all major capitals in Europe and Asia, the information you will retrieve will help us dismantle their entire organization. We hope to dismantle them before they can spread to the Middle East and Oceania. Schematics of their hideout will be sent to the Bioship,” She paused, “you are taking the Bioship, right?” M’gann nodded. Tim had yet to enter the vehicle though he knew the basics behind its operation (Robin had explained it to him) and had seen it before when it landed back on the Tower after a mission.

“The retrieval is a simple in and out,” a blueprint appeared in front of Tim, he studied it carefully, “entering from the roof. From the intel I have collected I can tell you what you’ll most likely encounter. There will be guards posted but you can neutralize them easily. They have mandatory check ins every fifteen minutes, if timed correctly this means you have fifteen minutes to disarm the intruder alarms, loop the cameras, and get down to the server room, which is four floors below ground—ten floors from where you’ll be, and back up without being seen. This, of course, is impossible. So plan for lock-down. Lock-down according to them begins with an entire building shut down. No one enters, no one leaves. All elevators and stairwells lock. Members are told to go into rooms and lock them, not letting anyone in. Then fifteen teams deploy. They search from top to bottom, which will give you some time. When lock-down starts you _must_ be within the building. You will have hacked in by the end of the fifteen minutes. The elevator doors will lock but the elevator itself will be deactivated, meaning you will have free reign of the shafts. Conner and M’gann will pry open the doors to the shafts and will fly you down to the correct level. It is important you _do not_ use the stairwells, those will be used by the teams of the gang. They’re extermination squads, their job will be to kill whomever they believe is intruding at whatever cost. They’re trained well. Do _not_ come into contact with them.”

“Background training?”

“We’re unsure at this time.” Kaldur explained. “That is part of the information you will be retrieving.”

Batgirl drew her finger down the map, tracing their route to the server room. “This is where all of their information is contained. You will copy the entire drive onto here.” She tossed a flash-drive to Tim who put it in his belt. “Then you will leave, and it will look like you’ve never been there. Conner, during this time you’ll give the extermination squads something to shoot at. They know someone has broken in, they need to think you’re all that did. M’gann will go with Tim and be backup. If we are needed call us in, it is crucial they do not realize we’ve taken their information. If they do they’ll change their plans and the data will be useless. You will make your way back up the elevator shaft and out the vent in the top. Conner will follow after bringing the squads on a chase.”

“And the reconnaissance?’ Tim asked.

“Once you land in Paris we want a full sweep of the city. Gangs, criminals, anyone who may cause problems in the future. We’ll expect you to nap between five and three am, when you will begin your attack. After the attack you will stay in the city for five hours, watch how they react to the attack. Make sure that you know their aftermath protocol. We can’t afford to be surprised by them. Got it?” Batgirl asked.

Tim nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Safe travels.” Kaldur wished fondly. Conner and M’gann waved to the others and Tim followed them out and to the Bioship.

The Bioship was… not what Tim expected. For one, it was bigger. And pinker. Conner sat in a chair, his back to M’gann. M’gann sat in the pilot’s seat, hands hovering over white spheres. A seat appeared behind a dashboard with buttons on it, parallel to the seat Conner sat in. “That’s yours.” M’gann said.

Tim sat and watched as the Bioship formed a seat belt around him. Huh. Cool. Tim poked it and it felt solid and didn’t jiggle. Hmmm… Tim picked it up between his fingers, pulling it back and forth, it stressed again him as if it wanted to stay against him. Tim let go and slapped back against his chest. Interesting. Clearly it didn’t feel pain from his poke, he wondered if maybe he hadn’t applied enough pressure. He dug a nail into the belt and M’gann yelped behind him, startling him enough to drop the belt.

“Wait. Bioship…?” _Oh._

“Yeah, the ‘bio’ refers to her connection to me.”

She’s a ‘her’, interesting. “Oh. Sorry.” If she felt pain and transferred that pain to M’gann did that mean… Tim reached the dashboard and glanced back at M’gann who only seemed concerned with liftoff right now. Tim pet the board gently and watched the Martian nearly jump out of her seat.

“ _Tim_!”

“Sorry. Last time, I promise.” Conner looked between them confused but turned his attention back out the windshield.

The ride to Paris was rather short. Tim had dozed off slightly and was shook awake by Conner. Tim noticed that Superboy wasn’t dressed in his uniform. Neither was Miss Martian for that matter, she wasn’t even green. They both wore civvies.

“Aren’t we patrolling?”

“In costume we’ll draw more attention than like this. Plus both of us speak French. You do too, right?”

“Yeah.” Tim said, confused. “I just… didn’t realize we’d be in civilian clothes on this mission.”

“Do you not have-?” M’gann asked surprised.

“No, of course I do.” The he’d stuffed sweatpants and a t-shirt into his belt were technically La’agan’s. “Give me a second to change.” Tim opened a compartment on his utility belt and pulled out the clothes, removing his costume swiftly and pulling on his alternate clothing. He kept the belt with him, the hem of his shirt fell over where the belt laid on his hips.

“Is-is that a Green Lantern shirt?”

Tim looked down. “Huh. Yeah, I guess. They’re La’agan’s.”

“That reminds me, we need to buy you clothes.” M’gann said. “We’ll stock up after the mission.”

“La’agan will love that.”

“I forgot you were still borrowing his clothes.” Conner said with a laugh. They walked over to a street-vendor and Conner bought food for each of them.

“So where do we start?” Tim asked.

“Follow me.” M’gann said.

They spent the day walking through the city, cataloging everything and everyone they saw. They spent a couple hours in the catacombs, watching drug deals and prostitutes look for clients. Soon they could identify the members of the gang which they were hunting, all members wore the same string-handmade friendship bracelets. When did friendship bracelets become gang symbols? They had hands in all sorts of criminal activity, their members worked in contraband distribution, solicitation, it even seemed that they had a couple thieves (they’d watched a handful of diamonds cross hands between a limber woman and one of the lieutenants they’d scoped out, then after stopping for an early dinner and hearing the radio speak about a jewelry store theft they put two and two together). They headed back to the ship, and three beds, side by side, appeared for the nap that Batgirl had scheduled for them.

M’gann crawled into the bed furthest from the Bioship’s door, Conner took the one closest.

Tim hesitated. “Isn’t this… weird for you?”

M’gann shook her head. “This I’m used to. Not many people… stroke the Bioship’s dashboards.”

Conner snorted before turned into the wall, away from M’gann. “Really?” Conner mumbled.

M’gann frowned but flushed. “Yeah. La’agan didn’t like the Bioship much.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

“No.” Conner said. “Sorry M’gann, that was rude.”

M’gann didn’t say anything. “I’m going to bed. You coming Tim?”

“Um, I’m going to stay up for a little while.” Tim said. “I have some work to do.”

“Are you sure? We don’t want you tired for your first retrieval mission.” Conner said.

Tim nodded. “I’m sure. I’ll take a nap a little later.” He promised. “The Bioship connects to the JLA servers, right?”

M’gann nodded. “Good night Tim.”

“Yeah, ‘night.” Conner added.

Tim sat in the his seat and brought up his profile, typing out a report. After he finished he read through his current cases, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. Just in case.

* * *

M’gann woke up when the Bioship‘s alarm went off. She frowned and looked over at Conner who was still sleeping, and Tim’s bed. Funny, it didn’t look like it had been slept in. M’gann heard a flurry of feet running across the deck.

“Tim?” M’gann asked, walking over to the other side of the Bioship. Tim stood, eyes flicking back and forth staring at a wall of sticky notes he must have placed on the ship. A screen sat open and he ran over to it, made a small adjustment to something, ran back to the sticky notes which spread across the ship and grabbed a handful from one side and ran to the other side and started sticking them back up places. “Tim, what are you doing?”

“I had a breakthrough.”

“I thought you were going to get some rest.”

“Can’t. I’m about to figure this out.”

“Tim.” M’gann grabbed the man’s arm, and he turned to look at her. She changed her clothes from that of pajamas to her uniform. Tim was breathing heavily and he was flushed, his mind was clearly reeling and M’gann was about to chide him but he opened his mouth and cried out: “You’re brilliant, M’gann!”

“I’m-what?”

“What’s going on?” Conner mumbled groggily from the bio-beds. He stood and walked over to the Tim, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Tim ran across the Bioship gathering certain sticky notes from here and there and placing them in new places. “It makes perfect sense now! He’s a shapeshifter! It explains how he never showed up on cameras and how everyone described him differently! Everything makes sense now!”

“What makes sense now? Tim, did-did you not go to sleep?”

“Too busy. Needed to finish this.” He started typing fast. He frowned and paused. “I need a way to prove this...” He stood again looking back at the sticky notes before diving back into the chair and continuing to type like a maniac.

“I didn’t know he was awake, I would have-” M’gann started to apologize to Conner but Conner waved her off.

“Tim won’t listen to anyone when he’s like this.” He explained.

“Almost done.” Tim hummed. He hit a key with a heavy finger and stared at the screen for a final, long second before saying, “that’s it. That’s it. I did it.” He jumped up from the dashboard. “I did it!” He cried.

“Tim, what are you going to do if you get tired?” M’gann asked cautiously.

“Eh, I’ll just take a caffeine pill. But it doesn’t matter because I won’t get tired.” To M’gann’s doubtful face he added, “I _have_ pulled all-nighters before.”

M’gann and Conner exchanged looks and Tim cracked his knuckles eagerly. “So? Are we going?” He asked.

M’gann shrugged and sat in the pilot’s seat. They drove in silence to the coordinates and M’gann parked over the building and camouflaged the ship.

 _ **Everyone ready?**_ M’gann asked. Tim jumped, startled by the telepathic voice.

“Did-are you in my head?”

 _ **You didn’t tell him?**_ Conner asked, annoyed.

 _ **Sorry!**_ M’gann apologized. _**I forgot! When someone is on a mission with me we use telepathy instead of comms, harder to hack and easier to communicate.**_

“Oh. How do I…?”

A concept flashed at Tim and he frowned before trying as the concept transferred into his head explained. _Like-like this?_

 _ **Exactly like!**_ M’gann cried with a grin.

_Cool._

They waited seven minutes and finally M’gann nodded to Conner and Tim and the trio dropped down to roof. There were twenty armed guards, but they were made easy work of. Tim had missed the Bat side of things, the walking on his tiptoes, the way his cape swished so lightly you could mistake it for a breeze, the look on his victim’s face when they realized just which group of vigilantes they’d pissed off.

Tim took his six down easily (M’gann insisted that she and Conner take down the two extra). M’gann had switched into her own camouflage mode and she took had taken down her guards without more than a whisper. Conner was slightly louder, but he was subtle enough that they saw nothing coming.

 _Time?_ Tim asked.

 _ **Ten minutes**_. M’gann warned.

Tim hooked himself into the network that connected the guards’ comms and mini-computers. He hacked in, quickly looping cameras, and spoofing the motion detectors and laser alarms.

 _ **Seven minutes**_. M’gann warned again.

 _ **C’mon Tim, we have to get in before the time’s up**_. Conner worried.

 _I’m almost done, chill_. Tim mumbled back before finishing up his endgame code. _Let’s go._

They slipped into the building, _**four minutes left**_ , Conner grumbled. Tim glared at Conner. They ducked into a corner hallway while a group of people walked past, talking loudly.

 _ **Lock down in three**_. M’gann responded.

 _See I had time to spare_.

Conner stuck his tongue out at Tim. They hid until lock down was initiated. After a thunder of footsteps as… workers (could you call the members of the gang that?) ran past them into the closest rooms and slammed the doors shut. “INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT.” The alarms blared.

 _Ya think,_ Tim thought. He hadn’t realized the others had heard him until Conner chuckled. Tim flushed and nudged Conner to shut him up.

 _ **Ready?**_ M’gann asked.

Conner nodded and ducked out of their hiding place, cracking his knuckles. _**Run**_. He told them before making a fist and punching a wall. **Gotta leave a trail.** He explained before he ran down the hall in the opposite direction of the elevators.

Tim and M’gann took off towards the elevators. M’gann wrenched open the doors with her telekinesis and held open her arms as she floated into the elevator shaft. Tim must have showed his wariness because she smiled. _**I won’t drop you, promise.**_

Tim took a deep breath and jumped. M’gann caught him easily though he had to admit, he was hanging on to her like a koala. No way he was going to let her drop him. M’gann forced closed the elevator doors and made sure they looked untouched. Then M’gann warned Tim to hold on and they plummeted with control until they reached a door that said S4, or as Tim assumed ‘sub-level four’.

They opened the sliding elevator doors and slipped into the hallway. Tim followed the path he’d memorized to the server room and bent down, to see a retinal and DNA scan. _**Do you need me to shape-shift?**_

 _Into who? No, let me deal with this._ Tim unscrewed the edges of the scanner and took out his army knife, fiddling away at the alarm until he heard a _click_. _See? Told you I could do it_. Tim slid the door open and M’gann gasped as they entered.

_**It’s so…** _

_Big? Unnecessary? Totally expensive and would cost us millions if we screwed it up?_

_**I was thinking more along the lines of pretty.** _

_Pretty?_

_**The blinking lights and the aesthetic…**_ M’gann waved a hand server banks within. _**It’s just really pretty.**_

 _Huh,_ Tim agreed, _I guess it is_.

Tim walked over, running his gloved hands over the computers. He walked back and forth down the aisles until he stopped in front of a data port and plugged in the drive Batgirl had given him.

Tim frowned. _Do you know how much space is on this drive?_

_**No. Why? Is it not enough?** _

Tim shook his head. _I don’t know… I don’t think so. These data files… they’re huge. We’ll be able to fit maybe seven at most on here._

_**Then be selective, we want what will give us the most intel.** _

_I know. Hmm… Maybe I can work with this though…_ Just a few tweaks to his endgame protocol…

_**SB, check in.** _

There was a loud grunt and Conner grumbled _**they’re on me, how long do you want me to keep this up?**_

Tim looked down at the data terminal. _If the data download stays at a fast, steady pace? Fifteen minutes._

 _ **Fifteen?**_ Conner cried. _**Isn’t it supposed to take like seven seconds?**_

 _I don’t know what type of data_ you’re _copying, but for this amount it’s gonna take a little while, even with transistors this fast._

Conner sighed. _**Fine. I just don’t like playing cat and mouse with these guys.**_

 _Really? Hadn’t noticed._ Tim responded.

Tim checked the amount of the download completed, twenty seven percent. Lovely. M’gann and Tim waited boredly for the data copy to complete. Tim began coming up with alternative ways out. The plan originally was to come out the top floor which would have been cleared by now of extermination squads, then Conner would fly out a window and meet them back at the ship. However that exit strategy didn’t account for any minor thing going wrong, such as a breach in protocol or-

 _ **Tim?**_ M’gann asked warily.

_Yeah?_

_**Are there supposed to be people walking toward the server room?** _

_Huh?_ M’gann was keeping watch at the door in camouflage mode and she sent Tim an image of someone coming down the hall outside. _Crap,_ Tim thought. _That wasn’t in the debrief._

_**Batgirl must have had bad information. He’s fiddling with the retinal scan. Tim, what do we do?** _

Tim checked the progress of the download, fifty six percent. Tim hacked into the retinal scanner and fudged it into believing that the retinal scan was incomplete because the person scanning in had blinked. _That should keep them busy._

Tim then set to work figuring out a new escape plan. _M’gann you can carry me and fly, right?_

_**Yeah.** _

_How good is your reaction time?_

_**Pretty good, why?** _

_**What’s going on back there? Are you having a problem?**_ Conner asked, though he sounded distracted.

 _We’re fine._ Tim responding, fingers flying across the computer. _Okay, this is how it’s going to go down. Conner, get ready to run like you’ve never run before, I’m about to tell them you’re here. I need you to stay as far away as possible from the elevator shafts, do you understand me?_

_**Sure.** _

_M’gann, on three I want you to pick me up and fly me to the roof of the server room. We can’t make a sound, we’ll have five seconds to get to the door in camo-mode before the door lets them in, that’s when we make our break for it. We go straight to the elevators then straight up, understand?_

_**Yeah.** _

_Okay,_ Tim continued typing putting his final touches on his endgame code. He grabbed the drive and thought, _one, two, three!_ And he pulled the drive from the server, jumping into M’gann’s invisible arms. They flew over to the door just as the members dashed into the room. M’gann and Tim flew as silently as possible, and went straight for their exit strategy.

 _ **How did you know we wouldn’t be caught?**_ M’gann asked.

Tim shrugged, _they never look up._

Up, up, and away Tim and M’gann went until they reached the top floor. Tim checked to make sure that no nasty surprises were waiting on the other end and M’gann wrenched open the elevator doors. She closed them behind Tim and M’gann and they burst out of the roof and M’gann flew them up to the bioship.

 _Okay, Conner we’re going to catch you. Where are you?_ Tim asked.

_**Fifth floor.** _

_Can you get to a window?_ Tim asked as M’gann flew her down to the correct level.

 _ **I’m at the fourth window from the brown brick building now, can you catch me?**_ He asked.

_**We’ve got you.** _

_Keep her in camo-mode until we’re a safe distance away, then Conner can come into the ship. Remember we want them to think that he acted alone in setting off the lock-down._

_**Ready?**_ M’gann asked. _**Jump!**_

There was a loud thud upon the roof of the bioship and M’gann swerved away, dodging the bullets which sprayed at her ship. After they were out of eyeshot of the gang, Conner slipped into the bioship.

“Did we get it?” He asked, eyes wide from adrenaline.

“Some of it, the mission was shorter than intended.”

“Batgirl won’t be pleased.” M’gann said.

Tim smirked as he sat back in his seat. They flew back, flying in a circle formation above the building as they watched the members scatter this way and that in the aftermath of the attack. “Well then, good thing I left a present behind.”

Conner and M’gann exchanged expressions.

The rest of the mission was relatively easy, documenting the response of the gang, and after that, true to her word, M’gann took Tim on a shopping spree. (She said as Tim awkwardly tried on designer jeans, “we get reimbursed for everything we buy, so no reason _not_ to buy designer labels.”)

The ride back to the Watchtower was exhausting and when they arrived they were greeted by the whole team. Bart and Jaime voluntarily shleped the new clothing to Tim’s room for him, and La’agan was overjoyed to know that his clothing would soon be solely his again.

Batgirl met them and Tim handed her the drive. “But,” Conner explained, “we weren’t able to download all the information needed.”

Batgirl’s face fell. “You’re kidding, right? Please say you’re kidding.”

“We’re not.” M’gann said.

Batgirl sighed. “Well, at least we have some information.” She lamented. “Even if it isn’t as reliable without the rest of the data.”

“Computer,” Tim said, “open up a keyboard and screen, please.”

“ _As you wish, Red Robin._ ” The computer said back. Tim walked over to where the keyboard and screen appeared.

“Uh, Tim, what’re you doing?” Batgirl asked.

Tim waved her over to the keyboard he was at. “I figured something like this might happen, so...” He pulled up his endgame onto the screen and implemented it.

“What-what’s this code?” Batgirl asked, eyes flicking back and forth across the screens.

“This is my endgame code.” Tim explained.

Batgirl’s mouth dropped open. “You’ve created a backdoor!”

“That I have.” Tim said with a smile. He watched and Batgirl continued to read the code, mouth slowly getting more and more ajar.

“You-how did you-?”

“I got this code from a friend of mine,” he said softly, “she’s really good with computers. I had to adjust it slightly, of course, the syntax would have been different on my world, but-”

“This is amazing!” Batgirl cried. She turned to Tim, “can-can I look at it?”

“Look at it all you want,” _after all,_ Tim thought, _it’s your code._ “My world’s gift to yours.”

Speaking of gifts, he still had to give his reciprocal gift to Conner.

“It’s been a long day, go hit the sack.” Batgirl said, eyes never leaving the screen.

Conner offered to escort Tim back to his room before going to meet with the other senior members of the Team to decide on Tim’s verdict.

When they arrived at Tim’s door, Tim asked Conner to wait before leaving. “I have something for you,” he said. Tim went into his room and retrieved his reciprocal present for Conner.

“It’s… an iPod?” Conner asked, confused.

“Not exactly.” Tim explained. “It’s similar to one, the design is actually from an iPod Nano, but it only plays white noise tracks.” He paused for a second watching Conner process the gift. “I, I remembered someone telling me how you liked to listen to white noise so I figured a snow machine would be pretty great, right? But like, if you don’t like any of these tracks just tell me and I can change it to something else, something more enjoyable.”

“You know you didn’t have to do this, that laptop was for work purposes-” Conner said, flustered. He turned the machine over and over in his hands.

“Yeah, I know.” Tim said softly, “but this just felt like… an acceptable gift in return.” He pulled two earbuds from his pocket. “These are Bluetooth enabled, but only for that device, but I could change that if you wanted. And here, it’s better than an iPod. You can set the amount of time you want to listen to the noise, or if you want it to play until you turn it off you can do that, _or_ you can play it,” Tim took the machine from Conner, showing him the different features, “until you fall asleep, then it automatically turns off. If-if that is, you want to do that, you don’t have to. Of course, if you want to set that up I’ll need a base rhythm for your vitals when you’re asleep so that the machine knows when to turn off the sound, so like you don’t waste battery, but um...” Tim finally snapped his mouth closed, unsure of what next to say.

“So,” Tim finally concluded, “do you like it?”

Conner blinked, staring at the machine before he turned to Tim. “This is the nicest present anyone’s ever given me.” Conner said.

Tim felt his face heat. “Oh. Is that-I mean, so you like it then?”

“Yeah.” Conner said, staring at Tim’s blushing face, “yeah, I do.”

* * *

“C’mon,” Tim said, arms up in a guard position, “hit me.”

Bart frowned. “Do I really need to, though? I mean, I’ve got _super-speed_.”

Tim turned to Robin, “aw, how cute, he thinks that powers give him an edge against a well trained fighter.” Robin suppressed a smile.

“Dude, I’ve fought both Nightwing and Robin before and I won. I think I’m good.”

“Last time I said that to someone I got my ass kicked by Black Canary.” Conner said as he walked into the room. M’gann and Kaldur followed him. Tim dropped his guard position.

Tim raised an eyebrow. “So?” He asked. “Am I in?”

“It seems you are.” Kaldur said, “congratulations, your mission was exemplary, impressive improvisation under pressure.”

“I tried my best.” Tim said, dismissing the compliment and blushing slightly from the praise.

“If that was your best then I am even more impressed.” Kaldur said. “Mission briefing in twenty!” He called to the rest of the Team before leaving to confer last minute with Batgirl.

Tim turned back to Bart. “C’mon, Bart. If it was that easy for you to beat both Nightwing _and_ Robin then beating me should be a piece of cake.”

Conner shook his head sadly from the sidelines. “Do you think Tim’ll beat him like Canary beat me?” He asked M’gann.

M’gann grinned. “Wouldn’t that be a sight.” She responded.

“Yeah, Bart! If it was so easy for you to beat me, throw one at Tim!” Robin called. The room began egging on Bart until he finally gave in.

“Fine. But I’ll go easy on you.” Bart promised.

“So will I.” Tim said.

Bart cracked his knuckles and pulled down his goggles before dashing at Tim who, with a flick of his wrist, sent Bart tumbling into the ground with a yelp. The computer helpfully pronounced Tim the winner of the match. Bart groaned as he sat up, rubbing his head from where he’d barreled into the ground.

“ _What was that_?” Bart cried, springing to his feet. Tim grinned and twirled the staff which he’d caught between the speedster’s legs to trip him between his fingers. He laid it across his shoulder.

“Want to go again?” Tim asked.

Bart grit his teeth and ran back to the edge of the room and around then back at Tim and Tim flicked out the edge of the staff straight into Bart’s rips, sending him spiraling into a group of teenaged heroes. Cassie pushed Bart off of her and he righted himself, staring agape at Tim.

“Again?” Tim asked.

And so it went for the next couple minutes, Bart trying again and again to land a hit on Tim only to have Tim use his momentum against him to with the match. Finally Bart conceded: “Okay, how did you learn all that?”

Tim gave Bart a hand (he was currently lying on the floor after he dove at Tim and missed). Bart took it as Tim helped him to his feet. “Practice. I’ve been up against enough speedsters to pick up a few things.” He explained. “So now we’re back where we started, aren’t we?” He asked. He held up his arms in a defensive position. “Hit me.”

Bart did and Tim blocked the attack and countered, hitting Bart in the chest. “Again,” he said. Tim and Bart practiced until their twenty minutes were up and they were greeted by Batgirl and Kaldur for the briefing.

“Alpha team will be Red Robin, Wonder Girl, and Bumblebee. From the backdoor that Red Robin installed into the gang we’ve been following’s Paris servers, we’ve found out of a product exchange between the Hong Kong chapter and another gang, mainly active in China, Russia, and north-eastern Asia. You’ll be staking out the exchange and bringing us evidence against them. Wonder Girl will go with you as protection. Beta team: Superboy, Robin, Mal, and Gar, Robin is point. Lex Luthor seems to be acquiring a new group of henchmen straight from African prisons, find out why and make sure they won’t hurt anyone. Gamma team: Blue Beetle, Miss Martian, Static, Miss Martian is team leader. Mammoth has broken out of Blackgate and is currently rampaging through Hub City, return him to custody before he kills anyone. Dismissed.”

“What about us?” Wonder Girl asked. “Who’s team leader?”

Kaldur exchanged a look with Batgirl, “figure it out.” He said.

Beta was taking Sphere, but since all of Gamma could fly Alpha took the Bioship (Bumblebee flew her). They flew down to Hong Kong, it was kinda funny, Tim hadn’t been to Hong Kong in so long…

“I vote Tim for team leader!” Wonder Girl said, raising her hand.

Tim snapped out of his nostalgic daze, “w-what?”

“I think that’s a great idea, Cassie.” Bumblebee called from the pilot’s seat.

“I-I don’t want to be team leader.” Tim objected lamely.

“Well, I guess you’re outvoted, buddy.” Wonder Girl said with a smile. “Besides, you’ll do great.”

Tim rolled his eyes, glad his mask covered his slightly flushed cheeks. “You ever been point on a mission, Bee?” Tim asked, turning around in his seat to look at Bumblebee.

Bumblebee shrugged. “A couple times, but that was way back when. You know, before Cassie and Bart and Jaime and Virgil.”

“And Robin?”

“Well, this one.” Bumblebee responded quietly.

Right, it was still real for them. For them Jason was still dead. “I’m sorry, I forgot.” Tim said.

They landed at the coordinates Batgirl had sent them and put the bioship in camo-mode. God, Tim loved camo-mode.

“Let’s get up close and personal.” Tim decided after seeing the lack of visibility from the place they parked the ship. They jumped out and Wonder Girl landed with a loud _thunk_! _She would need to learn better stealth capabilities,_ Tim thought.

Bumblebee shrunk and buzzed next to Red Robin. The exchange was happening at a shipyard.

“Why do these things always happen near water?” Wonder Girl asked. “At like ports and stuff, I mean,” Wonder Girl ran a hand against the cargo container they were passing. “Like why always cargo containers? Is it like super-villain bait?”

“Easy to move product, not to mention generally inconspicuous and cameras are limited.” Red Robin answered.

Wonder Girl raised an eyebrow. “Huh?” She asked, clearly not having expected an answer.

Red Robin gave her a small smile. “Yeah, it’s weird these things always happen near water.”

Red Robin climbed up the containers swiftly and quietly, Bee and Wonder Girl flew up to join him. They ran closer to the meeting and Red Robin decided on a good place for surveillance. He pulled out binoculars and passed a pair to Wonder Girl.

“Bee, get a close up.”

Bumblebee flew over to the gang, hovering as she observed the transaction. A woman stepped out in front of the gang they were observing. She wore a white animal mask (a cat maybe? Arctic big cat?), her wrap-like clothes were armored and covered a good amount of skin. She seemed familiar somehow…

She held out a hand to her backup, and a small wooden box was placed in it. She and the leader of the other group, a man in ninja-like clothes, exchanged what seemed like pleasantries in Mandarin. The ninja clothes made Tim uncomfortable, especially since the gang was from North-Eastern Asia and China… That could mean _real_ ninjas. The last thing Red Robin wanted to do right now was fight ninjas.

“What’re they saying?” Wonder Girl asked.

“I don’t speak Chinese.” Bee said.

“Mandarin. I do. Get closer so I can hear.” Red Robin said. Bee buzzed closer and Tim saw as one of the gang members swatted at the air, but paid her no more mind.

“ _-and you will hold up your end?_ ” The woman asked.

“ _Of course, Lynx_.”

 _Lynx?_ No wonder she looked familiar. “Crap. This is not good.”

“ _What? Why?”_ Bumblebee asked.

“ _Everything is in place._ ” Lynx promised.

“The woman in the mask? Her name is Lynx, I knew her on my world, but she was with the Triad there. And this gang we’re following definitely isn’t Triad.”

“ _-so, let us exchange._ ” The ninja man said.

Lynx ran her fingers over the box. “ _You first._ ”

The ninja man pulled something in an envelope from his pockets. He passed it to Lynx and she passed the wooden box to him. He opened the box and Bumblebee buzzed over it. Red Robin turned up the magnification on his binoculars, trying to get a better look at the contents of the box. “Bee, can you get some pictures of what’s in the box?”

“ _Yeah, sure. I’ll send them to you._ ” She paused. “ _Huh._ ”

“What?”

“ _Well, they look like remote controls._ ”

“They?” Remote- Fuck.

“ _Yeah there are like five of them-_ ”

“Is there a big button on top? Bee, this is very important.”

“ _Yeah, how’d you know_?”

“Those aren’t remote controls. Bee, those are detonators. Okay, this has gone sideways. Bee get the leader-ninja-man and the detonators, Wondy hold them off of us, I’ll grab Lynx. We need to get them back to the Watchtower, there are five bombs somewhere that we need to find.”

Red Robin shot his grapple across the clearing, the loud sound of the grapple deploying shocked the gangs. They pulled out their weapons, looking around while Bumblebee grew between them, stinging the ninjas into unconsciousness. Red Robin and Wonder Girl jumped into the fray, Red Robin dodged the bullets the gang-members sprayed. Wonder Girl distracted the Hong Kong gang while Red Robin swooped in and attacked Lynx.

Lynx fell to the ground and frowned, wiping blood from her jaw. “ _Who the hell are you?_ ”

“ _Someone who knows Mandarin._ ”

Lynx grinned. “I know English, too.”

“Whatever works.”

Lynx grabbed at Red Robin’s feet and pulled him to the ground. She climbed on top of him and gave him a punch to the face. Tim grabbed her arm and rolled them over, grasping for his taser in his belt while dodging her attacks. He tased her, feeling the electricity spike through her (he thanked Bruce and Alfred for thinking up rubber-guarded costumes, otherwise he’d have just as much electricity arcing through his body as Lynx).

“Bee, status.”

“ _I’ve-_ ” Bee grunted, “- _got him._ ”

“Good, then let’s get out of here. Meet you back at the ship. Wondy, cover us.”

“ _Why do you keep calling me that?_ ” Cassie asked as she punched the daylights out of someone.

“Oh. Sorry, old habit.” Tim responded. He grabbed Lynx’s limp body and hauled her over his shoulder. He ducked between fighting gang members while Wonder Girl made sure he got clear. He carried Lynx to the ship, once inside he patted her down, removing all weapons (he would rather strip her to make sure she was clean but since he had nothing to change her into and they needed to skedaddle), and he restrained her.

Tim radioed the Watchtower. “Kaldur, we have an issue.”

Bumblebee tumbled through the door, dropping the ninja and running to the pilot’s chair. Wonder Girl ran into the ship. “Go! Go! Go!” She shouted running to as seat as Red Robin patted down the ninja. He restrained the man and Bumblebee started the ship while Wonder Girl filled in Kaldur.

“ _Bombs_?” Kaldur asked.

“Yeah, I got the detonators but they’re still out there.” Bumblebee added.

“Kaldur, I think we should call others in. We’ll need help.” Tim called as he inventoried the weapons he’d pulled off of them. “It’s your call, of course, but-”

“ _No, I agree. I’ll pull Beta team, and ask M’gann to join us._ ”

“Why M’gann?” Tim asked.

“She’s our usual last resort for interrogation.” Karen explained.

“Ah, telepathy, of course.”

“ _Yeah, telepathy_.” Kaldur said softly. “ _So you blew your cover?_ ”

“Yeah, I figured that five bombs were good reason to burn ourselves.” Tim said.

“ _You figured correctly. We’ll get interrogation ready for you. Be careful._ ”

The comms cut. “You have sedatives?” Tim asked.

Bumblebee nodded. “In the back of the bioship there are a bunch of drawers, top ones have medical supplies.”

Tim went back to the drawers. “How long do they last?”

“It should say on there.” Tim glanced at the sedatives and in fact the drawer of syringes did. “How long ‘til we get there?” Tim asked.

“Like an hour.”

“Can you speed it up?”

“I’m not a god, Tim.”

“Sorry, Karen,” He apologized. Tim looked for one that said an hour and use it on their captives, hopefully they’d stay asleep until they got into the interrogation rooms. He injected them and then went back to his seat to catch his breath.

They went the rest of the way in silence. Once they arrived Conner and Robin met them at the hangar. They helped carry the two still unconscious gang members to the interrogation rooms. The ninja was the one to wake up first, so he was the first to be interrogated.

Conner and Robin went in while Karen, Cassie, Tim, Mal, and Gar waited in the viewing room. They tried to get information out of him but neither of them could understand the ninja, apparently they didn’t program Mandarin into Conner’s head and Robin’s wasn’t good enough yet. They came out defeated but Tim offered his services and he went in in Robin’s place.

“ _We want to know where the bombs are._ ” Tim said. The ninja shook his head. “ _We have the detonators, you can’t blow them. You have already failed your masters._ ”

“ _No. I haven’t._ ” He grinned, full of teeth, entire mouth covered by them.

No. Something was wrong. “ _Open your mouth._ ”

He swallowed thickly a grin still on his face. Tim lunged across the table, “ _open your mouth! Open it!_ ”

“Red, what’s happening?” Conner grabbed him, holding him back.

“No! S.B., he swallowed something—he’s going to-” But it was too late, foam frothed from the ninja’s mouth and Tim sighed, pulling away from Conner’s now limp arms.

“Did-did he just-?”

Tim kicked at the chair he’d been sitting on with a scream. “Woah, woah, woah. Tim, we have the girl-”

“Lynx. Her name is Lynx.”

“We have Lynx, we’ll find the bombs. Besides we have the detonators and-”

“ _Didn’t you hear what he said?_ ” Tim cried.

“No… I don’t speak Chinese, remember?”

 _Tim, take a deep breath. Just breathe. Conner didn’t do anything to you._ “Sorry.” Tim mumbled. “He said he didn’t fail his master so clearly we’re missing something-something with the bombs.”

“Well that could mean anything.” Conner argued.

He hadn’t failed his masters, his masters wanted the detonators for the bombs which meant they had some other way to detonate the bombs that didn’t require a detonator (c’mon, Tim, _think_!), what was the most common way to detonate a bomb without a remote detonator…

A timer.

“The bombs are on a timer.”

“What? How do you know?” Conner asked.

“I’m a detective, Conner. The bombs are on a timer somewhere in the world and we don’t know how long we have. We need to interrogate Lynx now.”

“Fine, but Tim-she finds out how stressed you are? She’ll clam up and we’ll get nothing, you have to calm down.” Conner said, placing his hands on Tim’s arms. “Look at me Tim,” Tim did, “you need to calm down. Breathe.”

“No one can die, Conner. I can’t let anyone die. Not again.”

“You’ll be fine. Everyone will be fine. Just breathe, okay?”

Tim inhaled deeply. “Sorry.” Tim mumbled.

“It’s okay, you calm now?”

Tim nodded. He and Conner left the room.

“What just happened?” Karen cried.

“Ninja guy killed himself, the bombs are on a timer, Lynx is our only hope.” Conner summed up. “You should have been able to hear and see all that.”

“I meant it as an angry figure of speech.” Karen said, rubbing her face exasperatedly. “You didn’t check him for false teeth?”

“I-I didn’t think-”

“It’s not Tim’s fault, Karen.”

“I know, just, what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to do everything we can. This isn’t our first rodeo, Karen. Tim and I’ll go in. Is M’gann here yet?”

“She just got here.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

They walked into the second interrogation room and Mal woke Lynx up with some smelling salts before walking out to observe.

They had to stay calm. Stay calm. Compartmentalize, Tim, it’ll work. It has before. Tim took a deep breath, goodbye Tim, hello Red Robin. Red Robin was always calm. Red Robin had a steady, cunning head. Hello Red Robin. Red Robin could do this by any means necessary.

Red Robin sat down in front of Lynx while she shook herself awake. Her gaze settled on Red Robin.

“What’s your name?” Conner asked.

“ _Lynx_.”

Conner raised an eyebrow. “She said ‘Lynx,’” Red Robin translated.

Lynx raised an eyebrow and smirked at Red Robin. She turned to stare at Conner. “ _Interrogating someone who’s language you don’t speak, that’s a very risky move, stupid hero._ ”

“ _Don’t call him that._ ” Red Robin growled while Conner said: “Who are your employers?”

She said nothing, continuing to stare at Conner, that smirk on her face. “When do the bombs go off? Where are they?” Lynx continued to say nothing. Conner and Red Robin tried some other tactics, good cop bad cop, hard ass and bad cop. Anything Conner could think of, yet she stayed silent. Usually she watched Conner, but sometimes she turned her gaze to Red Robin, always amused.

Red Robin wasn’t very amused.

They were getting nowhere. “Where. Are. The. Bombs?” Conner growled out yet over and over. “ _Who_ are you working for?”

Lynx was staring at Red Robin again. Conner snapped his fingers in front of her nose, “hey, I’m talking to you.” Lynx looked up at him lazily, then went back to staring at Red Robin.

“ _Nice costume._ ” She said with a grin, speaking for the first time in what had to be an hour. Her eyes rolled over Red Robin once more before settling back on his cowl.

Conner scowled. “Up here _._ ”

Lynx ignored Conner yet again and Superboy huffed before catching Tim’s eye and motioning that they should leave the room. Tim stood and followed Conner’s lead, but he couldn’t help watching in the reflective one-way mirror as Lynx watched him go.

 _Hmm_ …

Conner made sure the door to the observation room was closed behind him and crossed his arms. “We’re getting nothing.”

M’gann sighed. “I saw. Are you sure you’ve exhausted all interrogation tactics?”

Conner clenched his jaw. “We are not using you, M’gann.”

“I know!” M’gann agreed. “I’m not arguing that we should. I… need more practice, I know that.”

“But she still isn’t speaking and we’re on a schedule!” Karen cried. “We need to do _something_!”

He shouldn’t do it, but Karen was right. They needed that information. “I can get it. But you have to trust me.” Red Robin promised. The others looked at him, shocked.

“Tim, of course we trust you.”

“No, I mean really trust me. I’ll…” Red Robin let his eyes slip past the older heroes and over to where Cassie, Robin, and Beast Boy were watching him intently, “need some privacy.”

“How much privacy?” Conner asked, eyebrows knitting together in concern. “Tim, after your freak out before I don’t know-”

“No visuals and no sound.” They looked like they would object so Red Robin quickly added, “I won’t hurt her, promise. I just… need some privacy.”

M’gann and Conner exchanged looks. “Fine.” M’gann said.

Red Robin gave them a small comforting smile, and turned off both the camera recording the session and pulled the cover down over the window. He walked back into the interrogation room.

“ _Alone_?” Lynx asked, an eyebrow raised in inquiry.

“Yes.” Lynx smirked. “I have a proposition for you.”

“ _Okay_.”

“You tell me what I need to know, and I give you something in return.”

“ _And what would that be?_ ” She asked.

Red Robin turned off the speaker, and bent over the table so that he was only inches away from her face. “I think you know exactly what that would be.” He noticed that she wasn’t wearing her cuffs anymore, not that he’d expected her to be. At least she didn’t have a poison pill between her lips.

Lynx grabbed him by the cape and pulled him over the table to her.

* * *

Conner paced outside the interrogation room. He hadn’t liked what he’d heard before Red Robin turned off the sound. He didn’t like that he couldn’t oversee whatever deal Red Robin was making. He didn’t like any of this. But he heard no suspicious sounds and he couldn’t just barge into the room without showing Red Robin that he didn’t trust him. Which he _did_ , he was just worried. Lynx was manipulative and, quite frankly, a little scary. He just didn’t want Red Robin to get hurt.

_Thud._

Conner turned to Mal who stood next to him. “I’m not just hearing things, right?” Conner asked. “There was a thud.”

Mal nodded. Conner started for the door.

“Dude!” Garfield interrupted. “Tim said not to go in if we trust him. Do you trust him?”

Conner clenched his fist and almost let it drop down to his side but then he heard a _thump thud_ and was unable to wait any longer. Red Robin could have been in danger!

Conner opened the door and froze. Red Robin wasn’t in danger. Instead, he was kissing Lynx. Lynx had pushed his back against the wall, at some point her chair had been over turned and her cuffs unlocked. Her hands were pulling his head down to hers, their lips locked. Lynx detached herself from Red Robin for long enough to see Conner staring before giving him a cheeky grin and going back to kissing Red Robin.

She was kissing Tim.

Tim was kissing her.

Conner suddenly had a headache and was fairly certain he was about to throw up. Tim pushed himself away from Lynx, the part of his face that Conner could see was flushed. “What-I told you I was handling it.”

“Oh sorry.” Conner said bluntly. “I didn’t know you meant _literally_.”

“That’s-That’s not what-“

“Really, Red Robin? ‘Cuz that’s what it pretty much looks like to me.” As Conner spoke Lynx rubbed a finger against Tim’s lipstick stained mouth, and he pushed her away from him. She didn’t seem hurt by the gesture, only shrugging it off.

Red Robin stalked passed Conner, hissing “can I see you outside?” as he passed.

Conner followed him, slamming the door behind them. “Excuse me? _You_ don’t get to be angry!” Conner growled.

“Oh, I’m sorry Conner. I forgot that everything I do is suddenly your business.” Tim snapped.

“Not everything, only when you start selling yourself for information!”

“I-I wasn’t _selling_ myself for information!”

“Really, Tim? _‘Cuz that’s what it looked like_.”

“Oooo, Mommy and Daddy are fighting~” Garfield said softly, as if the joke would ease the tension between Tim and Conner.

It didn’t.

“Cassie, Robin, Gar, go down to the training room.”

“But-”

“I said, _go_.” M’gann snapped. Cassie and Garfield slumped out of the room, Robin behind them. Before he left, he sent Red Robin a look of sadness mixed with something that looked like mortification, mortification that a version of him would do that.

“How _dare_ you! How dare you say that in front of Robin!” Red Robin growled at Conner.

Conner clenched his fists. “How dare I?”

“You know how he feels about me! You can’t-you can’t just say that in front of him-!”

“Mal, Karen, can you go watch the others. Make sure they don’t get into trouble?” M’gann asked. Mal and Karen nodded and were out of there before one could say ‘enog’.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have sex with villains during interrogations!”

“I wasn’t going to have sex with her!”

“Then her information must not have been that good! What’s your price? A kiss for an employer? Second base for a bomb location!”

“Stop-Don’t-“

“No, really, I want to know! How far are you willing to go? For future villains who need subduing, of course. Do you have a preference of gender? I’m just trying to grasp your boundaries here-”

“What else was I supposed to do? She was _clearly_ into me, Conner! This way no one got hurt!”

“That doesn’t make it okay, Tim! You can’t have sex with someone just because it makes your life easier!”

“ _I wasn’t going to have sex_!”

“Then tell me, Tim. What _were_ you going to do?”

“I don’t-” Tim growled and rubbed his head, “-I was going to get us what we needed to know. No one was going to get hurt. No one was going to-”

Conner needed to get out of here before his short fuse blew. “Fine.” Conner relented. “Fine. But I can’t be a part of this.”

Conner turned on his heel and walked away before he started tremble. He needed to find Kaldur, he remembered this feeling… he needed to get away from this case before he did or allowed something to happen that he couldn’t fix.

“Superboy, wait!” M’gann called. “Where are you going?”

“I’m asking Kaldur to remove me from this mission.” Conner told her.

“What’s his problem?” Red Robin mumbled.

M’gann looked down at her feet, shifting back and forth. “He’s… got a thing about staying away from unhealthy relationships.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Um, it’s… complicated. He’s learned that stepping away from cases like these are… better for the mission overall.”

“‘Cases like these?’” Red Robin asked raising an eyebrow.

M’gann shook her head. “I’m not explaining this well.”

“No. I get it.” Red Robin looked back at Lynx who sat with her feet up, hands behind her head. “But we have a bomb to find and she knows where it is. I have a job to do and I have an in. I’m going to make sure the in is still there.”

“Tim, we can figure out another way-“

“Let me do this, M’gann.”

M’gann said nothing and Tim pushed past her, back into the interrogation room. Lynx looked up at him with a quirked eyebrow.

“ _Did your boyfriend get angry_?” She asked.

“He isn’t my boyfriend.”

“ _Really? Because I-_ ”

“Hold up your end of the bargain.”

“ _Information, right_?” Tim nodded. “ _Fine! Now, listen closely, I’ll only say it once. Lexcorp—Paris, London, Dubai, Metropolis._ ”

“That’s four. What’s the last target?”

“ _Pay me you’ll find out.”_

_How far are you willing to go?_

_I’d be saving their lives,_ Tim thought, _my comfort for the lives of others isn’t a question._

_That doesn’t make it okay, Tim! You can’t have sex with someone just because it makes your life easier!_

“ _No._ ”

“ _You’d sacrifice the lives of an entire city?_ ”

“ _No. I’d find an alternative way to get the information I want_.”

“ _Oh?_ ” Lynx grinned. She crossed her arms. _“And you’d do this how? I thought giving me what I want is your last resort_.”

Yeah, Tim, what is this alternative way of getting information?

C’mon Tim, _think_!

“ _That tactic didn’t seem to work, much. You only gave me four of the names._

“ _I’ll give you more if-”_

“ _But see, now that I know you’re going to milk it, why would I give you what you want? What’s to stop you from continuing to milk it? See, that wasn’t our last resort. It was the_ preferable _option. That’s now off the table.”_

Lynx stiffed.

“ _We have a Martian and she’s telepathic_.”

“ _Telepathic._ ” Lynx repeated, clearly skeptical.

“ _Do you want me to call her in? Because, see, I’m the_ nice _interrogator._ ”

“ _You already tried this. Remember? Good cop, bad cop._ ”

“ _Sure, we did that. But we’ve been waiting, not wanting to use her, see, ‘cuz if we do you might not be in any condition to do… well, anything, afterwards. It’s pretty easy for her, she’s done it before.”_ Lynx swallowed thickly _. “Now, you have five seconds to tell me where the last bomb is, or I bring her in here and I tell her to show no mercy._ ”

Lynx said nothing.

His voice deepened, and he channeled Him. He channeled the best interrogator he knew. “ _Superboy, when we went out and let you stew, he decided against letting her in. But Superboy isn’t here._ ”

Tim liked to think that she looked at least slightly afraid.

“ _Five_ …”

She said nothing.

“ _Four…”_

Her mouth remained closed.

“ _Three…”_

Still nothing.

“ _Two…”_

“ _Berlin! It’s in Berlin!_ ” Lynx growled, eyes flitting back and forth, as if she expected Miss Martian to appear out of nowhere. “ _Don’t-Don’t send the Martian in here._ ”

“Thanks. You’ve been a real pal.” Tim said, before walking out.

He shut the door behind him. “What-what was that? What did you do?” M’gann asked.

“Lexcorp offices; Berlin, London, Paris, Metropolis, Dubai.” Tim said.

“How-how did you-?”

“C’mon, M’gann now is not the time! We need to get the bombs.” Tim snapped.

M’gann glowered at him. _**We’ve got locations. The target is Lexcorp. Gar and Cassie get to Berlin, Mal and Karen go to Dubai, Conner, please Conner we need you.**_

_**I’m off the case, M’gann.** _

_Later, Conner. We can deal with this later, please, Conner, people will die._ Tim input.

There was a pause, then: _**Fine. What do you need me to do?**_

_**You and Robin, go to London. Tim and I’ll take Metropolis. Kaldur, I’m looping you in.** _

_**Yes, M’gann?**_ Kaldur asked in his calm tone.

_**Pull Bart and Blue, we need them for Paris.** _

_**Understood. They’ll be there. Go.**_ Kaldur ordered.

M’gann and Tim took off running. They zetaed into Metropolis and made a beeline for Lexcorp.

“I wish Wally was here.” M’gann mumbled.

“Another speedster would be nice.” Tim agreed. By the way M’gann was looking at Tim clearly that wasn’t all she meant.

 _ **Where would they hide the bomb?**_ M’gann asked.

Tim pulled up a schematic of the Lexcorp building (he really liked this hologram display that Batgirl had installed for him). They were in the middle of the cement courtyard in front of the building. _They’d want to cause mass destruction, so they’d probably go for a support beam and mega causalities which means basement._ Tim frowned and looked around. _Is it just me or are there a lot of man holes around us?_

_**There’s such thing as an unusual amount of man holes?** _

_Well, yeah. Man holes are used for maintenance purposes so having too many in one place doesn’t make sense, since sewers are mostly all connecting underneath the- that’s weird._

_**What?** _

_It says below us there’s supposed to be an underground parking lot which would be perfect for the bomb._

_**What’s weird about that** _ **?**

_I don’t see any place to drive into the parking lot. Do you? Plus there’s another one over there._ Tim said waving behind him to the occupied parking lot. Normally Tim would have let that pass, after all it’s not uncommon for a heavily employed building to have more than one parking lot, but the above ground wasn’t even completely full.

Tim ran over to a manhole and slipped inside, M’gann following him, using her telekinesis to replace the cover. Tim was about to stick plugs in his nose (sewer and all) but he noticed a distinct lack of sewer smell. Was this line cut off from the rest of the sewage system? Well that didn’t make sense, why would-

Tim heard voices. And ticking. He glanced at M’gann. _You hear that?_

_**Yeah. I’ll phase down and look for the bomb. You find a way to get everyone out.** _

Tim shimmed into a service exit and popped up and into what looked like the furnace room.

_**Tim we’ve got a problem.** _

_What now?_

_**This place isn’t a parking lot.**_ Tim opened up the door and frowned, no it certainly was _not_ a parking lot.

_They’re trying to blow up a secret Lexcorp lab._

_**What do we do?** _

Tim looked around at the scientists and tables of experiments and equipment. _We stick to the plan. You find the source of that ticking noise and I pull the fire alarm._

Tim was also going to download as much as he could from the lab’s mainframe, he needed to know what they were researching in a secret, off the grid, Lexcorp lab.

“ _Uh, Miss M? We have a problem._ ” Tim heard from his comm. Oh crap.

“ _What_?” M’gann asked.

Tim climbed up the wall, hiding in the shadows from the researchers and climbed near a smoke detector.

“ _I’ve searched the Lexcorp building five times already and I still can’t find the bomb._ ” Bart said.

“ _Check under the building._ ” Tim ordered as he held a lit lighter under the sensor.

The sensor blared in his ear and it took him a minute to process Bart’s response. “ _What? Why under-_?”

Tim jumped down from the wall as the crowd of scientists rushed out of the lab. “ _The Metropolis building had a secret laboratory under it, check for one. We think they want to blow them up._ ”

“ _We found a lab too,”_ Robin confirmed.

_**Tim! I found the bomb but I can’t disarm it! I don’t know how with this kind!** _

_Okay, I’ll be right there. How much time?_

“ _If you can, copy some of information from the computers before you go.”_ Kaldur said.

_**Twenty minutes, thirty seconds.** _

Tim pulled off his gauntlet and stuck the USB reel into one of the ports on the closest monitor. He set up the information copy as M’gann flew up to him. _**I’ll finish the download.**_

Tim pulled off the gauntlet which was attached to the USB, he probably wouldn’t need it anyway. _Direct me._

 _ **Go left.**_ M’gann began. M’gann directed him between the walls of the lab and the sewers until he reached a support beam, at the bottom was a ticking bomb.

Tim bent down and did what he always did when disarming a bomb, he looked at the amount of time left.

19:24

He could do this. Tim took out a screwdriver and popped the bomb’s lid. He looked at the bundle of colored wires and traced each one to it’s source. There were six wires, not a very complicated bomb. Two booby-traps, both on the blue wire. Once the red was cut the bomb would go off.

18: 51

“ _Double R, any idea how to disarm this? I haven’t seen a bomb of this make ever._ ” That was Mal.

“ _How much time does everyone have?_ ” Tim asked.

“ _Eighteen forty-seven.”_ Robin said.

“ _Well now it’s eighteen forty-five._ ” Cassie said.

“ _I think we’ve all got the same time._ ” Karen added.

“ _Okay, look for the basics, and be careful. Mine has multiple trips._ ” Tim said.

“ _Noted._ ” Garfield said.

Tim checked the explosive packets. Four, blue, purple, green, yellow. Hmm… He took out his clippers.

16:30

_M’gann, you out?_

_**Almost. Ninety two percent done. Why?** _

_I want you out before I cut the wires._

_**Tim, if it’s that dangerous we can… we can figure out another-** _

_No. Go. I’ll be fine. Just in case, M’gann. Remember I want to live too, I have a mission to get back to._ Eventually.

 _ **Cut when I give you the signal.**_ M’gann said reluctantly. So Tim double and triple checked. Yep, this was the wire he needed to cut.

14: 55

_**Ninety-five percent.** _

Tim hated this part. The waiting.

_**Tim-Tim I hear noises.** _

Crap. Tim reached for his gauntlet and realized he’d left it up with M’gann. Fuck. Fuck. Fuc-

_The building must have been searched and with no fire it was dismissed as a drill. They’re coming back in to continue their work… Okay, this is what we do. You turn invisible and at the latest time possible unplug the glove, finished download or no. Then you get the hell out of here._

_**What about them? You’re not willing to risk my life, but you’re willing to risk theirs?** _

_You want me to cut it now? ‘Cuz I will._ Tim grumbled.

_**I’d rather no one risk their life. If you aren’t sure-** _

_I’m sure._ But that didn’t mean he didn’t want M’gann as far gone as Timbuktu when he cut the wire, just in case.

_**Then cut it. Now!** _

Tim glanced at the time.

14:12

Now or never. Tim cut the wire and squeezed his eyes shut.

Nothing happened.

He checked the bomb. Not blown up, timer not ticking. Huh.

“ _Hey, guys, I cut the yellow wire at the junction point at the underside of the explosive packets. Worked like a charm. I don’t know if yours are anything similar but.-”_

“ _Thanks, RR, see you back home._ ” Robin said.

Yeah, home.

_M’gann, let’s go._

_**See you topside.** _

* * *

“That was-That was amazing!” Garfield cried. He launched himself at Tim. Tim’s first instinct was to duck, but that wouldn’t be very nice to Garfield so he let himself be attack-hugged. Garfield pulled his head back. “I couldn’t make _anything_ out of that bomb! How did you know that would work?”

“Uh… when I clipped the wire I didn’t go boom?”

“Huh. That makes sense. Noted.” He hugged M’gann next.

“I’m glad you are all safe. Batgirl and I will review the information those of you that gathered brought back. Hit the showers everyone, after a day like today you probably need it.” Kaldur said.

Tim began walking with the rest of the team to the showers when someone placed a hand on his shoulder. Tim turned to see Conner, Tim was surprised. “We need to talk.” Conner said.

“Okay. Now or…?”

“Now.” Conner said. He nudged his head over to the edge of the room and Tim followed him there.

“Tim, you need to know I only agreed to come back because lives were at immediate risk.”

“I get it, you’re still angry. I understand, and I apologize, I shouldn’t have done that and when I… I didn’t need it in the first place. I-”

“Tim, I don’t want to work with you anymore.”

“What?”

“I’ll stay friends with you, I still like you, Tim but I… don’t know if I can trust you anymore.”

“You can always trust me, Conner.” Tim promised. He could. Tim wanted Conner to trust him. Tim trusted _him_.

“I don’t know if I can.” Conner said.

“But Conner after you left-after-I listened! I didn’t-I stopped. You were right, you asked how far I was willing to go and I realized I wasn’t. I wasn’t willing to go at all. I stopped. I used other tactics.”

“You used M’gann, Tim.” Conner said through gritted teeth. “You used _me_.”

“I-I thought you didn’t want me to sell myself for information!” Tim hissed. “You were gone, and M’gann was freaking out and so were the rest of our team… I scared Lynx. That was all, it was what _you_ tried and _failed_ to do. I saved those lives and I got her to sing. And no one was _compromised_ , and no one was _hurt_.”

“I know, Tim. _This time_ no one was hurt and _this time_ no one was compromised and _this_ _time_ you found a second solution.”

“Every time. I’ll find a second solution _every_ time and _every_ time I’ll make sure everyone is safe.” Conner said nothing. “I want you to trust me again, Conner. How can I earn back your trust?”

“I don’t know, Tim.”

Well that’s just _great_. Now Tim was mildly irritated. “Well you let me know when you figure it out.” Tim said. “Are we done?”

“What, are you angry at me now?”

“Yeah, kinda. Whatever, it’s fine, Conner. I’ll get over it.” Tim said. And Tim would also win back Conner’s trust. He would. He’d… he’d figure out a way.

“I’m done.” Conner said.

Tim was on his way out of the room when Batgirl called his name. “What?” Tim asked, a little more harshly than he should have.

“I’m going to need help going through this as quickly as possible. I’m sending you a bunch of information.” Batgirl said.

“I’ll go over it in my room after I hit the showers.”

“Sure thing,” Batgirl cocked her head (presumably as she listened to someone reaching her on comms) and turned to Kaldur, “I’m being called back to Gotham, I’ll get on this as soon as possible.”

“Understood, see you later.” Kaldur’ahm said. “Stay safe.”

Tim left the room. The last stragglers were still in the shower which meant that Tim wouldn’t have any time to himself ‘til he got to his room. He ignored Mal and Virgil and Garfield’s endless jabbering and washed and dressed quickly. He walked into his room, peeled off his armor, and collapsed on his bed. Today had been a long day.

* * *

 _It starts like this._ Tim is sitting in the graveyard. “Hey Steph,” he says, “so today Cass and I went to the movies and got some popcorn and zetis. Some dudes starting hitting on her so she kicked their asses.” Tim laughs. “You would have liked it.” Of course, Steph doesn’t respond. Tim tries again: “I miss you,” he says, “I miss you so much. You know, I-I keep thinking about, maybe if I hadn’t, maybe if I had stopped you when you first started… maybe you’d still be here.”

“You’re right.” The voice startles Tim, he jumps back as the gravestone speaks in Steph’s voice. A hand reaches out from the soil and grass in front of him, dirty but manicured. “It’s all your fault, Tim.” It’s fingers wiggle, “You could have stopped this from happening. It’s all your fault.” The hand grabs Tim’s leg and Tim screams.

 _It starts like this_. Kon’s laying on the ground and Tim is running to him. He’s crying and Kon is calling out his name, soft, pleading. Tim tries to scream but he can’t something is clogged in his throat and he’s running but it feels like he’s running through amber. Kon’s sobbing for him, blood mixed with tears. But Tim can’t move, he can’t even breathe. And Kon dies. And it’s his fault.

 _It starts like this._ He’s beating on the Electrocutioner and the Electrocutioner is crying blood. “Tim!” Cassie screams, trying to pull him back, “Tim! Stop!”

“You don’t know anything about my father!” Tim’s so angry he’s spitting. “You don’t know anything!”

The Electrocutioner grins and whispers something he shouldn’t have and Tim sees red. He pounds and pounds and Cassie and Kon try to pull him back but they fail. This time Tim doesn’t stop. This time Tim keeps beating on him. He beats until the Electrocutioner’s face is a mush of blood and skull fragments. When Tim finally pulls back the villain isn’t moving. Tim looks at his gauntlets and the brain matter smeared across the knuckles. Cassie and Kon look at him with a horrified look. They’re scared. They’re scared of him. “My dad died.” Tim says, it’s all he can. But this time they don’t comfort him.

 _It starts like this_. He’s sitting in his lab, drinking from coffee long since cold and stale. He clicks the button and runs the simulation yet again. Tim watches as yet another attempt fail and he throws his quarter full cup at the cloning device that _he built himself SO WHY ISN’T IT WORKING!_ “Computer, reset.” Tim says.

“ _Reset complete_.”

Tim stands and goes over to fiddle with the cloning formula. Then he sits back at his desk, and presses the button again. And it fails. Again.

He has to make this work. He _has_ to.

He can’t fail him again. He can’t fail Conner again.

But Conner isn’t dead.

_This is how it ends._

“It’s just a dream.” Someone whispered. Tim snapped his eyes open. He was surrounded by arms, pulling him in, rocking him gently. “It’s just a dream.” Conner repeated. “It’s just a dream.”

Tim ignored the comfort he felt when Conner hugged him. He ignored the feeling of home, of trust. He sprung from Conner’s hold. “What are you doing here?” Tim asked, ignoring that his hands were shaking.

“You were having a nightmare,” Conner said, confused, “I was comforting you. Like I always do.”

“I-I thought you-I thought you were angry at me-”

“I’m not. But even if I was that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t come for you when you need it. I may not trust you, but I still care about you. You’re part of my team. You’re a friend, Tim. And if you cry in the middle of the night, I’ll comfort you, like I always have.”

Tim’s breathing was shaky. He crossed his arms and tensed to stop from trembling. Conner would always come for him… always.

There was a small knock on Tim’s open door. Conner turned to see a tired Garfield and Jaime in the doorway. “Is Tim gonna be okay?”

“We heard him screaming.”

Tim flushed and looked at the ground. “Yeah, Tim’s going to be fine, he just had a nightmare.” Conner said.

“Oh.” The boys exchanged looks but didn’t ask any more questions.

“He’s going to be okay.” Conner reassured them even though he didn’t quite believe it himself.

* * *

The tension between Conner and Tim was almost palatable. The few times they were in the same room you could feel every movement one of them made, and every movement made seemed to purposefully be in the opposite direction of the other. Yet, even though it was almost impossible to see them in the same room, there was still tension. It seemed to span entire miles and leagues, even planets or galaxies. When Conner was on a mission and Tim was in his room you could still feel the tension in the air, when Tim was on a mission and Conner was in Ivy Town nowhere near him, it was still there. It seemed to be getting worse, and so did Tim and Conner’s avoidance of each other.

And it was starting to affect the team.

So, Garfield hatched a plan.

Garfield knocked on Tim’s door. “Hey, we’re all going down to the old HQ for a beach day, you coming?”

“Nah.”

“Aw, _please_?” Garfield begged. “You never just chill, _c’mon_.”

Tim sighed, Garfield was going to keep badgering him (maybe as a literal badger) if Tim kept saying no. “Okay.”

“Woo! Okay, just bring your swim suit! Mal and Jaime and me are gonna bring the food.”

“Okay.” Tim said as he watched Garfield skip out.

Tim changed into trunks and a white tee, and grabbed a towel. He applied copious amounts of sunscreen to his body. He grabbed his laptop and zetaed down to the old HQ. Only to be mildly surprised that said headquarters were a slightly blown up version of Mount Justice.

“Tim!” Cassie called, running over to him.

Cassie dragged him over to the beach behind the ex-headquarters and to where the team had set up a barbecue, a cooler, and a bunch of lawn chairs. A handful of towels were thrown together on the sand, their owners playing in the water. Tim settled in one of the empty chairs, tossing his towel across his legs to protect them from the heat of his computer. He turned it on and was suddenly pulled away from it by Karen shrinking and grabbing it from Tim’s lap. Tim began to protest but then he was lifted up by Laga’an and Mal and thrown into the ocean.

Well played.

Tim raised himself from the water to a giggling mass of super-teens. He rolled his eyes, a smile appearing on his lips. He ran his hand through his hair and pulled off the t-shirt in a swift motion. “You guys are so gonna get it for that.” He said with a laugh. When he looked up again there stood Conner. Tim froze.

“Hey Tim.” Conner said casually before turning to talk to Mal. No one seemed to notice that Tim was unable to stop staring at him, completely startled.

“Woah! Dude!” Garfield cried, interrupting Tim’s confused frozen state. “What’s that one from?” He asked poking Tim in the chest.

Tim looked down to see the youth pointing at a small circular scar near the middle left of his chest. “Uh… I don’t remember.”

Garfield’s eyes bugged. “You don’t remember? It must have almost killed you!”

“I mean, I guess.” Tim said with a shrug. He began wringing out his shirt.

“You _guess_?” He turned to Bart with a face like ‘can-you-believe-this-guy?’

“After a while it gets a little harder to remember all of them.” Tim said flippantly.

Tim dodged a large splash and walked out of the water, and up to Mal. Tim flicked his dripping hand at Mal, spraying him with water. “That was rude.” Tim said, teasing.

Mal grinned and wiped the droplets from his face. “You need to get your head out of that laptop.” He argued. He had finished setting up the barbecue and he started filling it with meat and meat substitute (for Garfield) foods. Conner handed Tim a soda and opened a bottle of water for himself. He handed Mal a beer and the Mal popped the lid and took a swig from it. “That’s the whole point of this thing.”

“Uh huh.” Tim said.

“You never relax, dude. What do you even do to unwind?”

Tim shrugged and drank his soda. “I train.”

“You have got to be kidding.” Mal said. “You haven’t _always_ been a hero, right? What’d you do before then?”

“Oh, I did photography.” Tim said casually.

“Really?” Conner asked, surprised.

Tim didn’t look at Conner, instead he sipped his soda.

“Photography sounds cool.” Mal said as he took a drink when Tim didn’t respond to Conner.

"It was.”

“What were your favorite subjects?” Mal asked. Tim flushed. Mal’s eyes widened and he flipped a veggie burger. “ _Really?_ I mean, each to their own but you don’t look like _that_ kind of guy-”

“What? No! Nothing-nothing like that!” Tim said, with a small laugh. “No! I just… it’s just a little embarrassing...”

“Oh?” Conner said with a raised eyebrow. “Now I really want to know. What’d you shoot?”

Tim said nothing again, he only sipped his soda.

“ _Who_ did you shoot?” Mal tried.

“It was stupid kid stu-”

“Tell us, tell us, tell us...” Mal began to chant.

Tim wanted to roll his eyes, he was such a child. “Batman, okay?”

Mal’s mouth dropped open, accompanied by Conner’s wide-eyed stare. “ _Batman_?”

“Batman and Robin. It’s how I met them. Not how they met me though.” Tim said with a small smile, remembering.

“Batman. You had _pictures_ of _Batman_.” Mal gaped.

“Have. I still have them, back home, you know.” Tim joked. “Not that everyone is going to see them ever.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“Mal, your food’s burning.” Conner warned.

Mal yelped and started dealing with the meat. “It just got pushed to the wayside while I dealt with life…”

“Did you ever tried to get back into it?” Conner asked.

Tim sucked on his teeth and didn’t answer. Conner scowled, if Tim wasn’t going to talk to him then he wouldn’t talk to Tim. That was all there is to it.

“You know what, Mal, I’m going to go into the water. Keep my bottle cold and away from Laga’an?” Conner asked Mal. Tim looked intently at his soda can.

“Sure thing. Call in the others if you want, some of the food is ready… or well… overdone.” Mal said, making a face at his meat. He unloaded the barbecue of the everything on the done side or past it and loaded them onto plates. He reloaded the barbecue. “So… why are you ignoring Conner?”

“I’m not ignoring Conner.” Tim sputtered. “Why-why would you say that?”

“He tried to talk to you a bunch of times and you flat out ignored him every time.” Mal said.

Tim frowned. “Fine. I ignored him.”

“It’s none of my business-”

“You’re right,”

“-But I really think the two of you should make up.”

Tim set his jawline. “That’s on Conner.”

“It’s on both of you.”

Tim scowled at Mal and drank his soda.

“I’m right.” Mal said. Tim really didn’t advice right now.

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. They sat down and ate at one point. Cassie used her super strength to make an enormous wave and almost drowned Robin. Virgil accidentally sent a shock off through the water when he laughed so hard he fell on his ass, this almost electrocuted those in the water but the only other person in there was Conner and he was… well, invulnerable.

Tim and Conner were the ones shafted with the responsibility of returning everything to the Watchtower (a design of Garfield’s, he’d planned this very carefully after all). Mal and Karen had disappeared at some point and Tim had taken over food cooking duty and had finished making dinner. But here they were, packing up, all alone.

Not talking.

Mainly because at this point Tim didn’t know what to say.

Only when they had almost finished, did anyone speak at all. And it was Conner who spoke. “You know, just because I don’t trust you doesn’t mean you have to be an ass.”

Tim looked at him for a very long minute, said, “thanks for your input,” and went up with the last of his stuff to the Watchtower.

Garfield waited for Tim and Conner to zeta up. He figured they’d be laughing and smiling like they did in the old days. _Who wouldn’t after a day like today?_ Garfield thought.

He was disappointed when he saw that his plan had failed and so he complained to Jaime on the way back to their part of the hallway. After they’d left, Kaldur looked up from his paperwork, if this was how they felt then something had to be done. And if Gar couldn’t do it, Kaldur had to.

* * *

“This is ridiculous.” Kaldur said, arms crossed. “You two won’t even talk to one another.”

Tim and Conner looked at one another from across the table. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Tim said.

“Of course, I’m sure you don’t.” Kaldur grumbled. He sighed. “I didn’t want to do this...”

“Then don’t.” Conner said.

“I am assigning the two of you to a simple data gathering mission.”

“Kaldur-” Conner argued, but Kaldur ignored his protest.

“I need Tim for his knowledge of computers and for his subtly and ability to conduct reconnaissance without explosions.” Kaldur explained. “I need _you_ for your experience in these cases and for your strength.”

“What about Mal?” Conner argued, pointing to said vigilante who was subtly playing a game of Hangman on a napkin with Karen who sat next to him. (The word was K-R-Y-P-T-O-N, but far be it for Tim to clue him in on that. Mal only had two legs and an arm left).

“ _Mal_ has other stuff to do.” Mal said before returning to his game.

Conner glared at Mal, but Mal wasn’t looking at him. “You will go. The mission will probably take only a couple hours. You’ll be looking for a reason for why the gang tried to blow up Lexcorp.”

“What, are we working for Lexcorp now?” Conner sneered.

“What they did was illegal, and they were working with the gang under current investigation, so yes, we will be working for the benefit of Lexcorp as of now. You can take the Sphere. Here are your coordinates.” Kaldur said, sending a message to Tim.

Tim received the message and looked up at Conner hesitantly. Conner sighed. “Fine.”

He stood and Tim followed, silently and a little sheepishly. They didn’t speak as they climbed into Sphere. They didn’t speak as Tim input the coordinates and Sphere flew to a rural area in Japan. The fact that they weren’t speaking just made both parties increasingly more uncomfortable until finally when touching down about a mile from the gang-base Tim caved and spoke. “So, how ‘bout them Knights?” He asked.

Conner looked at him, confused. “Huh?”

Tim shook his head. “Nothing—it’s an expression from back home,” and Tim should have stopped talking there, as he got out of Sphere, but he didn’t, “’cuz the Knights are a sports team?” He also should have stopped talking there, but he didn’t, “like because when there’s a lull or something in conversation people talk about sports or the weather-” _why couldn’t he stop blabbing_ “-but I guess you don’t care much for sports so even if they were a team here you wouldn’t-” please, he begged the universe, send someone to stop me from continuing this sentence.

And for once the universe(s) listened. “I get it.” Conner said stonily, which gave Tim a great opportunity to snap his mouth shut and never open it ever again for the rest of his life.

Conner ordered Sphere to hide, and he and Tim began the trek to the ninja-gang’s base. The trek was mostly silence.

About halfway to the base Tim turned to glare at Conner. “Can you walk any louder? I think they can’t hear you in Norway.”

Conner scowled at Tim, but said nothing.

They continued sneaking towards the base (Conner did lower the sound of his feet). When they got to the end of the forest they surveyed the compound wall.

“There’s a blind-spot directly next to the wall under that guard post.” Tim said.

Conner crossed his arms and looked at Tim. “Uh-huh. I’m going to just stay here and wait for you to figure out a way for us to get over there without being seen.”

Tim narrowed his eyes at Conner. “You underestimate my abilities.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Conner, I’m a _Bat_.”

Conner stared at him for a minute before getting it. “Oh. Wait, are you going to show me Bat-disappearing tricks?”

“What? No! Of course not, _I_ had to wait two years of active patrol before he started showing all of that to me.” Tim deadpanned. Conner stared at him. “I’m joking.” He added.

“You-you are?”

“You thought I was serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You guys are insane.”

“I thought this mission was supposed to _improve_ our relationship.”

Conner rolled his eyes. “So what’s the plan, _Bat_.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Follow me.” he mumbled. “Stealthily.”

“I can be stealthy.”

“Well, you’ve been getting _better_.”

“I can be stealthy!”

“Yeah, saying things loudly—not helping.”

Conner made a face at Tim and Tim responded with one of his own. “Now shush.” Tim ordered. He covered most of the red with the way his coat billowed around him. He used his mask to zoom in on the cameras on the wall and the guards above in the guard post. He switched lenses, looking for the alarms. The wall was basically a vertical mine.

Well, crap.

Tim chewed a lip. He checked the guards again, that was weird the one supposed to be watching the perimeter kept looking back at the inside of the compound, as if he was looking at a dashboard… or… something that could work in their favor. Tim checked local TV stations. There was a sports game on. Perfect.

“Land exactly where I do.” Tim said. “And _quietly_.”

He made sure the guards were looking away, and checked to make sure no sensitive motion sensors hit a certain spot. Tim took a running jump, flipped, and landed with what Dick would give a nine point eight. He then ducked, covering himself with his black cape, making himself virtually invisible from the watch-post. The ninja-guard looked and then went back to the dashboard to continue watching their game. Tim looked for the next spot and moved on. He turned around, waving Conner on over and Conner did the same. This continued until they’d made it all the way to the blind-spot next to the wall.

Tim frowned as he looked up at the wall in front of him. Tim looked up at the look-out post on the wall and surveyed the security. “Now what?” Conner whispered.

“Jump up there, knock them out. You’ll need to turn off the perimeter security and give me a signal. I’ll grapple up, then I’ll get the information off the USB port and everything will be good.” Tim explained.

Conner nodded and squatted, ready to jump when Tim grabbed his arm. “Aim really carefully. It’s like a game of operation, touch the wall, the alarm goes off, mission fail.”

Conner nudged Tim’s arm off of his, “yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, “whatever.”

Conner sprung, jumping through the window on the watch-post. He landed without much noise and took out the ninja guards quickly. He looked at the buttons and flicked a couple switches. He gave Tim a thumbs up and Tim took out his grappling reel (a gun would have made too much noise) and he swung it into the box as he climbed. He rushed over to the security panel in the watch-post and searched it for a USB port. He found one and slid his arm-drive into the port.

Security was pretty easily hacked after that, but the information they were seeking wasn’t there. Tim looked through the blueprints, and found the gang’s leader’s office within one of the buildings in the compound. Great. He must have kept all the information to himself just for this sort of situation.

Tim hated smart criminals.

“Our information’s in there.” Tim said, pointing to a building in the middle of the compound. “Follow me, and we’ll get in and out and no one will be the wiser.”

“I _have_ done recon before, you know. In fact,” Conner hissed, “I even worked with _you_ doing recon.”

“Yeah, and see how well that turned out.” Tim snapped. He wrote some code into his gauntlet-computer. “There, now I can remotely access their security. Follow me.” He jumped down from the watch-post and he and Conner snuck through the base.

“What is your issue?” Conner asked.

“ _My_ issue? I’m not the one who has an issue here.”

“Um, yeah you are.”

“No, Conner. You’re the one who doesn’t trust _me_ , not the other way around. I trust you just fine.”

“Yeah, and when I said that you took it in stride then said you’d win me back, and I don’t see much winning or stride. No, I see a lot of avoidance. _Petty_ avoidance.”

Tim shushed Conner, and they squeezed themselves against the wall as four ninjas exited the middle building and walked past, seemingly oblivious to them. Tim brought a finger to his lips and he and Conner ran to the door, sliding through before it could shut. Tim checked his blueprints and looked around for a safe route.

Tim tapped Conner on the shoulder and pointed to the vents. Conner vehemently shook his head. “Uh-uh. I don’t do small spaces like that. Find another way.” His voice barely audible.

“That’s the _safest_ route.” Tim argued.

“Find. Another. Way.”

Tim grumbled and looked back at his blueprints. “If I was doing this on my own, I’d be out already.”

Conner raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Because I seem to remember not half an hour ago, me needing to turn off the security for you.”

Tim glared at him. “I would have found ‘another way.’” Tim mimicked.

Conner rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

Tim went back to his blueprints only to hear footsteps. He looked for a solution and grabbed Conner by the shirt and pointed up. Conner seemed confused at first but when Tim climbed on his back and pointed up again, he understood and jumped, curling his arms and legs around the support beams. Tim closed a hand over Conner’s mouth and nose, muffling his heavy breathing, and hoped for the best. The footsteps passed as the pair of ninjas did and Tim jumped down. Conner softly dropped down behind him and Tim nudged his head as the two of them cautiously snuck down the hall.

“Don’t guys fail the ninja-test if you can hear them coming?” Conner asked.

Tim ignored the question. “It wasn’t _petty avoidance_.” He said. “You said you didn’t know how I could win back your trust, or even _if_ I could. So, I decided to lay low until I could figure out a way to win it back. I didn’t want any more interactions between us to stain my already, clearly, bad rapport.”

“You-you really thought you’d screw up so badly, even when we were just, I don’t know, hanging out, that I’d hate you or something?”

“N-no.” Tim stammered. He stopped Conner again and the two of them hid in an unlit alcove while some gang-members walked past. “Whatever. Besides, it’s not like you were dying for me to be around.”

“I don’t trust you, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, or think you’re a cool person, or not want to be around you. You stopped showing up to training and missions, it’s not my fault I had class the five times you ended up coming out of your room.”

They climbed a bunch of stairs, and Tim pointed them towards what was the inside of the outer wall of the building. They kept to the wall as they walked.

“I didn’t come out only five times—and you were actively avoiding me too!” They paused their argument to runs swiftly down a hallway to the end room which held the leader’s office. Tim tried to slide the door open but it was locked. He knelt down to pick it while Conner used his super hearing as a lockout. “What about that mission Kaldur assigned us on and then you had to switch out at the last minute because you had ‘a paper due’?”

“I did have a paper due!”

“One that you hadn’t even started, though I know that when you really _do_ have a paper due you work on it and finish it days before the deadline so you can specifically go on missions!”

“I forgot about it ‘til then, okay? It happens.”

The lock clicked and he and Tim entered the room, closing and locking the door behind them.

Tim ran to the computer in the center of the room and turned it on, plugging in his USB drive. The USB began decoding the owner’s password. “Yeah, sure it does.” Tim mumbled under his breath. Conner gave him a _look_ but said nothing.

The two of them sat and stood (respectively) awkwardly as the decryption program Tim had set in motion did its thing. Tim was about to start actually twiddling this thumbs when they started hearing sirens blaring.

Crap.

“I thought you said we’d be in and out!” Conner growled.

“Clearly they figured out that the people we took out weren’t at their posts.” Tim mumbled. “They usually don’t do check-ins like- whatever. Okay, new plan.”

Conner waved a hand for Tim to continue. Tim blanched. He glanced at the decryption, it was barely halfway to the password. Perfect.

Then something very large kicked down the door. Tim cut the connection to the computer and ducked under the computer desk and wood went flying over his head. “What was that?” Tim hissed, poking his head out of his hiding spot.

The smoke cleared to a large, white, red-headed, Bane looking person.

“Mammoth.” Conner growled.

“ _Mammoth_? What the hell-” _Readjust Tim, readjust, and figure out a way out of here._ “Okay. Fine. Mammoth.” Mammoth roared and ran at Conner who dodged. Mammoth punched the wall of the room, ripping open an exit to the courtyard below. Tim ran and tackled Conner. The two of them flew out the hole in the wall and Tim readjusted midair so that Conner took the brunt of the hit to the ground. They left a crater and Conner grumbled something as Tim stood, and pulled out his staff.

“Really, man?” Conner mumbled as he shook the fog of the fall from his head. He stood and his eyes widened as he found himself back-to-back with Tim, surrounded by at least fifty ninjas. “Oh.”

“So much for my perfect record on reconnaissance missions.” Tim mumbled.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Conner said, brushing a hand against Tim’s. “I’ve got your back.”

Tim nodded and, as one, they attacked. Tim went straight for the knockout while… well, while Conner did his go-to move: he punched a lot and _really_ hard.

There was a loud _thud_ and a rising of dirt and dust as Mammoth joined the ninjas and Tim and Conner on the ground. He roared and barreled straight into Conner. The ninjas scattered to avoid being collateral of the two metas’ enhanced battle. The ninjas left Conner to Mammoth and went after Tim instead. While he tried to battle off four, two others managed to nick him with their katanas. Just when it felt like he was drowning in fighting them, something hit one of them, spearing them through the shoulder and spraying a mass of tear gas.

Tim changed his visor to his infrared one, and grabbed his oxygen filter, stuffing it in his mouth. He rolled away from the ninjas who, disoriented from the unexpected attack, stumbled around, rubbing where they saw through their masks and coughing. Tim hear the faint telltale sound of a bow firing and ran as he heard something land beside him and start to click. Three seconds later the place he had been standing exploded.

The smoke began to clear and Tim took out the blobs of red he could see through his visor. He slammed his staff into their legs, tripping them and then he kicked them in their faces to make sure they wouldn’t get up again. He narrowly dodged a sword and kicked the ninja between the legs, then sent them into the ground. He grabbed the sword and parried another attack from someone else. He ducked as throwing stars whizzed over his head. He heard the thrower grunting as he was taken out. Had Conner finished his battle with Mammoth?

The smoke was almost done dissipating so Tim returned his lenses to regular. He heard a scream as Conner picked up a large chunk of earth and threw it at Mammoth. Nope, Conner was still occupied. Tim twirled his staff, deflecting some throwing stars before using it to vault over to the thrower and kick him on the way down. The ninja disarmed him and he sent a punch at the ninja’s head to which they dodged and counterattacked. Tim kicked them and they stumbled back as Tim advanced, alternating kicks and punches. He was about to give the ninja the final blow when something blew past him and straight into the ninja, knocking him out cold.

Tim picked up the offending object, only having a moment to process before he had to be up on his feet again and dodging the next attack. It was a red punching glove arrow.

Oh. So that was their company.

He used the arrow as a weapon, slamming its head into the faces of the gang members trying to kill him. There was a roar of effort and suddenly Mammoth flew over Tim’s head. Tim dove away from the man as he fell onto the group of ninjas in front of him.

Someone held out a gloved hand to Tim and Tim took it without a second thought. The two of them stood back to back, Tim took his batarangs out. He threw them at the handful of ninjas left but true to their ninja nature, when five went down ten more appeared out of nowhere.

“We need to get out of here.” Tim said, hoping Conner could hear him over comms with all the external noise.

“No shit.” The gruff voice behind him said. “Cheshire, find us an out.”

_Cheshire? What the hell was she doing with Red Arrow?_

“Duck.” Red Arrow hissed as something flew over their heads and exploded. The pieces rained down on the ninjas around them. Red Arrow grabbed Tim and pulled him over to where Conner and Cheshire were. “Who the hell’s the new kid?” Red Arrow asked Conner.

Tim stepped onto Red Arrow’s shoulder (“What the fu-?”) and vaulted over his head, taking down an oncoming enemy. “What’re _you_ doing here?” Tim asked.

Red Arrow seemed surprised by Tim’s tone and answered, releasing a flurry of arrows. “Chesh had some loose ends to clean up, so we stopped by only to see you two outnumbered. We decided to help. _You’re welcome_.”

Tim scoffed. “So what? You’re a villain here?”

“Villain-what-?”

“Talk later. Now, fight for lives.” Conner snapped.

Tim needed to end this. He grabbed some explosive pellets and knockout gas pellets from his belt. He held them in one hand, the other ready on his belt for his oxygen mask. “S.B., on three: grab them and get out of here. One.”

“What-who died and put you in charge, runt?” Red Arrow asked incredulously.

“Two. Three.” He threw the pellets at the ground and Conner swooped them up and jumped. Tim pulled the mask over his face and was faintly aware of a scream and Conner yelling for someone to get off him as Tim made a break for the wall. There was a large explosion behind them and Tim scaled the wall of the compound, his back roasting from the heat of the flames. He managed to climb over the wall when he realized his cape was on fire he tore it off and snuffed out the flames with his foot. Conner landed next to him.

Cheshire was screaming something about her baby and she and Red Arrow were ready to climb back in when they watched as a helicopter approached and a handful of ninjas managed to jump from the wall to the helicopter.

“ _Lian!_ ” Cheshire cried, running after them. Conner tried to hold her back, telling her that it was no use. Tim then noticed the empty papoose on Cheshire’s back. Tim took out his tracking gun and shot at the ‘copter. The tracker latched on and Tim took a moment to catch his breath. He sat on the ground outside the compound while the gang members fled like rats from a sinking ship.

“Let go of me! I have to get Lian back!”

“It’s going to be okay.” Tim said tiredly.

“How can you say it’s going to be okay? My daughter has been taken by ninjas! I can’t believe we stopped to help you! Who the hell are you anyway?” Roy roared in Tim’s face.

Tim stood, pushing Roy away from him. “ _I_ can’t believe you brought Lian to a fucking mission, Roy! What is this, amateur hour? What? Was Ollie too busy fucking up to babysit? And what the fuck are you doing with _her_ , Roy? Do you know any better yet? I swear to god, if you’re high I’ll-” That’s when Tim realized why Cheshire and Red Arrow were staring at him like that. They didn’t know who he was, because these versions had never met him.

Conner placed a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “He’s-he’s not yours, Tim.” He reminded Tim.

“Who the _hell_ are you? How do you know my name?”

“Who cares, Roy. We need to get Lian back-”

“It’s okay, Cheshire. I have a tracker on the helicopter.” Tim stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. He waited for Sphere to appear.

“You-what?”

“I placed a tracker on the helicopter.” Tim said. “We can chase after it in the Sup-Sphere. We can chase after it in Sphere. We’ll get your daughter back.” Tim took a deep breath. “I’m sorry Roy, I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. Sometimes I forget.”

“Forget what? What the hell is going on? Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Tim, I am from parallel world where I am the superhero Red Robin. I fight criminals. On my world Cheshire is a criminal and you… well you have your own issues.”

“Kaldur sent us on a mission here to find out why these guys want to blow up secret Lexcorp labs.”

“Oh, _I_ know that.” Cheshire said. There was a revving sound as Sphere zoomed over to them. Tim hopped into the driver’s seat and Roy sat up front while Conner and Cheshire sat in the back.

“You do?” Conner asked, surprised. As Sphere took off, following Tim’s tracker.

“These guys think the cloning projects that Luthor is working on are abominations.”

“Do you know why Mammoth is working for them?” Tim asked.

“Yeah, he would be one of those abominations according to them, wounldn’t he?”

Cheshire shrugged. “Cheap and dumb labor.”

“Robin, huh? What, you have a connection to Batman or something?” Roy asked.

“Sort of, and no I’m not going to elaborate.” Tim said.

“Can’t this thing go any faster?” Cheshire asked.

“It has two modes, fast and warp speed. Which would you prefer?”

“If you don’t change to warp speed I will warp speed-”

“Jade.” Conner said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Tim’s got it covered. We’ll get Lian back.”

“Thanks for your reassurance but I’d like to make sure of that myself. No offense, I’m sure you really trust this guy and all,” _Ignore that, Tim, that’s a topic for later,_ “but I don’t. I just met him. And if he doesn’t speed this thing up I will carve out his insides.”

“There’s the Cheshire I know.” Tim muttered darkly. Tim kicked up Sphere’s speed a notch.

“So what’s the plan?” Conner asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Get my daughter back.” Cheshire said. “You’ve got a missile arrow, right, Babe?”

“Yeah.” Roy said as he took it from his quiver.

“What about the ninjas?”

Cheshire raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t insinuating I should let them live...”

“You’re a good guy now, Jade, don’t you think you should give them to the authorities.”

“I think they lost that privilege when they kidnapped my girl.”

“In their defense, we did bomb their base.” Tim mumbled.

“Besides, kid,” Cheshire added, “I’m not _really_ a good guy, not like you and your friends.” She eyed Tim, “and this one here too, I guess.”

Tim chuckled. _Oh Cheshire, if only you knew how many on my home-world disagreed._ “Almost in sight-line.” Tim stated. They heard the distant _thiwp-thiwp-thiwp-thiwp_ of the propellers.

“Bring me up underneath them. I’ll grapple up. Keep that arrow warm, baby, if they start shooting bring them down.” Cheshire said as she stood, checking her grappling gun to make sure everything was in order.

Tim increased Sphere’s speed again and when he was in vertical position (about five meters below where the helicopter flew) they noticed him. Someone stuck their head out the side of the vehicle and ducked back in only to bring out a rocket launcher.

“New plan.” Roy said as he notched the missile arrow. “Get our daughter back in one piece.”

Conner started to protest but the rocket was shot and so was the missile. They collided midair and the backlash hit the helicopter, propelling it sideways. Tim stepped on it and Cheshire shot her grapple gun and it latched around one of the runners on the bottom of the helicopter. While the helicopter tried to right itself Cheshire jumped off Sphere and started to ascend up the reel.

The ninjas came back out of the cabin with a couple of submachine guns. “When did ninjas stop being traditional?” Conner grumbled from the back seat. They started spraying at Sphere with bullets and Tim started evasive maneuvers.

“Superboy, does Sphere know how to phase?” Tim shouted over the _rat-ta-tat-tat-tat_ of the guns.

“What? I don’t know.” Conner said, distractedly. A couple of the bullets had hit Conner and it had annoyed him. He growled, his usually developed-and-therefore-less-short temper fizzled out and he stood, cracking his knuckles.

“I’m going in.” He called. He emitted a war-cry then jumped from Sphere to helicopter, taking the gunfire from the terrified ninjas. Tim squared Sphere at the helicopter though continuing to fly lower than it. Tim looked down at the dashboard and noticed a button he’d never seen before. Maybe it was phase… He pressed it in those hopes only to be surprised when a laser shot out and hit one of the propellers.

“You can shoot _lasers_?” Tim asked, stunned. Sphere chirped back in response.

The helicopter began to fall and the ninjas began fleeing the vehicle, diving to the ground, some with parachutes, some without.

“RR! CATCH US!” Superboy screamed as he held Cheshire who held Lian in her arms.

He jumped from the falling aircraft and Tim didn’t need to steer Sphere. She flew as fast as possible to specifically catch he who she had originally bonded with and caught the three of them in the backseat. Tim flew away from the burning helicopter and when they were a safe distance away he paused.

“Lian!” Roy cried, climbing past Tim to the backseat where his wife and daughter were. Tears leaked from his eyes as he kissed Lian’s head over and over again, before sharing a loving kiss with Jade. Tim watched as Conner caught his breath and gave him a small, relieved smile over the family’s embrace.

“You okay?” Tim asked.

Conner nodded. “Watchtower?”

Tim nodded. “Watchtower.”

* * *

The ride back to the Watchtower mainly consisted of Roy interrogating Tim, which meant that walking into the briefing lobby where some other heroes were waiting was an actual relief. “You’re back!” Bart cried happily. He ran to hug Tim, and then Conner. This stunned Roy long enough that he lost his train of thought and no longer asked Tim any questions (a sweet reprieve).

“How did the mission go?” Kaldur asked.

“Great.” Tim said, cheerfully.

“That was a trick question.” Kaldur said. Tim was about to ask why when Kaldur called up a screen and tuned into a Japanese TV station which had apparently filmed the latter half of the battle between them and the helicopter and the ticker at the bottom talked of an explosion and fire a little north of there.

Tim laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, so maybe not that great. But we’re all safe, just a couple nicks and bruises, _and_ we have the information.”

Kaldur rubbed his head wearily. “Reconnaissance. Why is reconnaissance so hard?” He sighed. “Alright, tell me the information then write the rest up in a report for Batgirl to go over.”

“They went after Lexcorp because they think cloning is an abomination. Oh, and we learned that from Cheshire.”

“Cheshire-?” Kaldur asked, surprised.

Cheshire shrugged as she bounced Lian up and down, trying to get the girl to sleep. “I used to work for them.”

“Any chance I could ask you some questions?” Kaldur asked.

Cheshire shrugged and handed Lian off to Roy. “Make sure she gets to sleep tonight, and don’t let her sleep in, she needs to be on a schedule.”

“Sure thing.”

“Speaking of sleep,” Batgirl said, “Conner and Tim, hit the showers then the sack. We have an early team training session with Black Canary.”

“Okay.” Conner said. Tim saluted her and the two of them walked off to the showers.

“Uh, Conner? Can I ask you something?” Tim asked as he peeled off his suit, checking for wounds.

Conner walked into the shower room and turned on the water. “Sure.”

“What Cheshire said… about me being a guy you ‘really trust’...?” Tim joined Conner in the shower room, everything he had were nicks, he could deal with them after a quick shower.

“That was-she doesn’t really know us.” Conner said. “You-you didn’t think-?”

“That you’d forgiven me? That you trusted me? I, I don’t know. It was stupid. Never mind.”

Conner didn’t say anything for a while. Tim was in the middle of putting band-aids on his not-quite-clotted-yet cuts (showered and dressed) when Conner responded. “But I do. I realized I-I do trust you. When we fought back to back...” He closed his locker with a _click_. “I do trust you, Tim. You earned it again. You aren’t going to keep avoiding me now, are you?”

Tim gave Conner a small smile. “No. Have a good night, Conner.”

“Yeah. Sweet dreams, Tim.” And that night, Tim did.

* * *

When Tim walked down to the training area the next day at six thirty am, Tim had expected to get to training if not early, at least on time. He was neither apparently.

“We decided to let you sleep in.” Batgirl said. She patted the seat next to her and Tim climbed up and sat. The team sat on bleachers (from where they had come from, Tim didn’t know, he’d never seen bleachers here before), while they watched Black Canary kick Karen’s ass. Speaking of which, Karen was landing on her ass at this very moment. She grunted an “oof!” and groaned when Canary offered her a hand and told her to get up.

Canary opened her mouth to start a speech about whatever Karen had done wrong but when she looked to the team and saw Tim sitting amongst them. “Tim, here to grace us with your presence?”

“Sorry, Teach!” He called from the bleachers.

“Go sit down,” she told Karen, who gratefully wobbled to where a water bottle lay on the bottom row of the bleachers. “Tim, if I’m not mistaken you owe me a sparring match.”

“What? Since when?” Batgirl asked.

“Since I met her when I came here and promised to when I was better.” Tim answered swiftly. He stood. “You’re not mistaken.” He said to Canary. He climbed down from the seats and began to stretch on his way over to her.

“Rules?” He asked.

“First to cry ‘uncle.’” Black Canary said, a smile flickering onto her lips.

“YOU’RE TOTALLY GONNA GET OWNED, DUDE!” Gar called from the stands.

“I don’t expect to win.” Tim said.

He gave Black Canary a short bow, and she returned the nicety, amused by Tim’s formality. “ _He_ would never train you to be this formal.” She said. “Who trained you?”

Tim attacked first, a punch to the chest, which Canary batted away easily. She retaliated with a roundhouse kick, simply evaded by Tim. “On my world she was called Lady Shiva.”

Canary raised an eyebrow, but added nothing. She swept at Tim’s legs and he jumped over the attack. He took a step back, and she took a step forward. Canary narrowed her eyes, the past attacks had been to gauge response time and intensity. This would be her real attack. She moved like a viper. First she tried to punch at the top of Tim’s torso, she sent a flurry of punches to that area that Tim avoided by bending backward. When she quickly tried for his legs to push him off balance he continued his bending over until he flipped backward, landing in a guard stance.

Canary walked casually, and Tim knew if he had a chance at even getting close to possibly beating her he would need to strike now, which she would probably also realize. He struck at her core, she grabbed his hand and flipped him, slamming his back into the ring beneath her. He grabbed her legs and pulled them out from under her. She caught herself and mimicked Tim’s move of flipping backward and landing on her feet. Tim dodged as one of her feet in the move made to kick him in the face.

“Impressive.”

“I’ve been doing this for a very long time.” Tim said as he rolled to his feet. “But then again, so have you. And sadly we don’t spar as regularly as I would hope.”

“No?” Black Canary asked as she took a step forward.

“No.” Tim said. He kicked at her waist and she blocked his foot and closed the distance between them and tried to punch him in the chest. He blocked it and tried to wrap an arm around her neck to bring her into a choke-hold but she grabbed said arm and continued to pull it over her neck until Tim found himself back on the ground. Canary looked at him and bent down, her knee on his chest.

“Too bad. You could use it.”

“Could I?” He could, of course he could, but friendly banter had become engraved in him once he was Robin for a while. Tim took a deep breath and lifted his legs up and clamped them around her neck, then he slammed them down, causing her to stumble off of him. He jumped back to his feet.

“BOO! STOP TALKING!” Someone called from the stands. “Ow!” The person cried as someone else presumably hit them.

Canary attacked heavily. Tim wondered if she’d decided to finish this bout. Tim blocked and dodged, as she vigorously tried to make him lose his balance or catch him with a hard attack that would make him fall. Tim knew that counterattacking would not only be unproductive but probably would lead him to an opening that Canary could exploit.

So Tim continued to block and dodge until a surefire way could appear, but the dodging and blocking was tiring him out. He turned to his mental clock and realized a good enough chunk of time had gone by that he could lose gracefully. He sent a kick into Black Canary’s side which she grabbed, pulling in towards her but right past her side. Tim fell forward and Black Canary wrapped an arm around his neck. She wrestled him to the ground and pulled him into an uncomfortable headlock. She tensed and a jolt of pain ran up Tim’s right side and down his bent backwards arm. Tim tapped with his free arm and Black Canary untangled her limbs from Tim’s.

She held out her hand and Tim took it. “Not bad. Though, I bet you’d last longer with your toys.” She said.

Tim resisted the urge to respond with ‘that’s what she said,’ because he did have a particular affection for the safety of all of his body parts. “Thanks.”

She gave him an encouraging smile and turned back to the group. “All right, everyone down to the ring, I’m going to teach you a new move and Tim here is going to help me.”

* * *

“Hey Tim, can I talk to you?” Batgirl asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Tim mumbled. He pulled himself off the couch, and stepped around the heroes spread out across the carpet. They were introducing Tim to ‘Hello Megan,’ so the senior members and Batgirl had declined to join the rest of the team in the marathon. The couch hadn’t fit them all, so a handful of them lay across the carpet below it, collapsed on one another. Tim told them to go on without him and he joined Batgirl in the briefing room.

“What’s up?” Tim asked.

“Does this make sense to you?” She asked.

Tim looked over the data. “This-this is the Lexcorp data, right?”

“Right.” Batgirl agreed. “They were all standalone labs, not sharing any information, so a lot of it’s been duplicate, since he had them working on the same stuff-”

“Cloning.” Tim said, nodding slightly as he continued to intently read information.

“Ye-yeah. How did- oh yeah, from the gang, that’s how you know-well anyway, that was their _main_ project. He’s still trying to recreate Conner. But some of the projects, the stuff I sent you to go through, was completely different. But… I can’t- something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

Batgirl sighed in frustration, and elbowed Tim away from the screen. She pulled up five different windows, each with data from a different lab. “They weren’t in contact, and yet… well what does that look like to you?”

“Um… Well, you have the Metropolis lab working on some type of time/space disrupter, and the Paris lab is working with some type of laser beams, and Berlin is working on AIs, and then London has-” London is working on micro-fuel. “They’re all working on… building a spaceship?”

“I thought I was crazy! What would Luthor need a deep space, AI-capable space-destroyer for? And, here’s the interesting part, they don’t seem to realize that their projects could combine for this! They’ve been working off of all these separately, and they came from separate projects: Metropolis started the space/time disrupter by trying to recreate Apokolips tech, the laser beams are being worked on as counter-security measures, the AIs started as… well as any AI project starts, with a want for a successful AI.”

“So Luthor is setting up his scientists to build a spaceship without telling anyone why?”

“I guess...” Batgirl frowned. “But why would he need it? Luthor is pretty adamant about his xenophobia. He’s not G. Gordon Godfrey but he’s not exactly the biggest advocate for alien communication. And why keep it secret unless… he was using it for something frown-upon-able or illegal.”

“Or maybe he just knows that the JLA would want to strip him of it.” Tim suggested.

“Yeah, but he could spin that into oppressive rhetoric, he’d never pass up a chance to get the League on the bad side of people. Plus space travel and helping NASA and S.T.A.R. is ‘in’ right now.” Batgirl argued. She chewed her lip nervously. “Something’s wrong. We’re missing something.”

Tim nodded. He scanned the information, flipping from window to window. “I think we need to do some more digging.”

“Well, that’s an understatement.” Batgirl said.

Tim rolled his eyes, good-naturedly. “Do you want me to hack into your account and do my own research or-”

“I doubt you could,” Batgirl said, “however, I will send you the information.” Tim’s expression changed and Batgirl frowned. “What is it?” She asked him.

Tim tapped at the holo-keyboard. He flipped through data, scanning it and reorganizing it in his brain until he made the connection. “There’s another lab.”

“What?”

“There has to be. One we missed, one those gangs missed. Somewhere they had to be working on the actual skeleton of the ship. Not to mention the fact that… well, Conner was made from Kryptonian and Human DNA, right? But there’s no file with the DNA in _any_ of these projects. Information like that is too valuable for Luthor to lose or keep to himself. Somewhere there’s the base DNA code file that all these other projects are using for their experiments. There _has_ to be.”

“Tim, I think you just found the Team’s next mission.” Batgirl said with a grin. “Want to help me iron out the specifics and pitch it to Kaldur?”

“Would it mean I would get to hack into Lexcorp and snoop around?” Tim asked. Batgirl raised an amused eyebrow as a response. “Then it would be my pleasure.” Tim told her, giving her a small gallant bow.

* * *

“Are you nervous?” Kaldur asked, amused as Tim kept fidgeting.

“No, of course not.” Tim snapped, but he continued to fidget and Kaldur’s amusement didn’t waver.

“You know, they aren’t as scary as they seem.” Kaldur said.

“I _have_ debriefed people before. Ran my own team a couple of times.” Tim mumbled defensively.

“You worked very hard on this case, compared to that the debrief will be easy.” Kaldur reassured Tim. And Tim had worked really hard on this case. He and Batgirl had been corresponding for about a month, planning the mission. It was also Tim’s first mission where he would give the debrief to the Team, alone.

He wasn’t nervous exactly, but this was essentially _his_ mission. He had figured out the inconsistencies that led to the recon missions (he could only trust Karen to do these low-key missions without blowing stuff up) which led to the information gathering that led to the mission itself taking form. He and Batgirl had built it together, but he was giving the debrief. He’d done it a hundred times before, so why couldn’t he stop tapping his foot?

“Thanks, Kaldur.” Tim said. He really was grateful for Kaldur’ahm.

The pitter-patter of teenaged vigilantes’ feet hit the ground like a thundering stampede. “Here they come,” Kaldur hummed, “good luck.”

Tim resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The Team skidded to a halt in front of Tim, some with rapt expressions, others a little annoyed to be woken up before noon (but what could ya do about that?). M’gann and Conner were the last to arrive, they chilled behind the rest of the Team.

Tim took a deep breath and pulled up his visual aids. “Okay,” he began, “as you all know, Batgirl and I found some inconsistencies in the information that we received from Lexcorp’s secret laboratories. After a few weeks of research we discovered another Lexcorp property that wasn’t registered with any governments, making it illegal. The property is located in Southern Bialya, in a secluded location.” The screen behind Tim changed images into satellite pictures of the compound. “With Karen’s help we found out that it’s a compound.” A 3D image appeared with the layout of the compound. “Staffed with about a hundred and fifty members, over a hundred of whom are highly trained guards. They have two above ground floors, but they have multiple subterranean levels. On these levels are the lab experiments that we wish to end before they can hurt someone.”

“Wait... are you saying that we’re going to… blow up a building… on purpose?” Jaime asked confused.

“Yeah,” Virgil added, “isn’t that like… illegal?”

“The building itself is illegal, so technically we can’t be prosecuted if it is, but it’s really not. We’re just going to take some preemptive measures to make sure no one gets hurt.”

“By blowing up a building?”

“No one will get hurt in the process, besides one of the projects we’ll be blowing up will enable Luthor to traverse deep space with no regulations as he’s not building the ship for any legal space venture, not to mention we’ll be blowing up hopefully the last trace of Kryptonian DNA obtained from Superman illegally that Luthor possesses. And yes, I’ve passed this information up the grapevine to the Big Man in Blue and Batman said he gave the a-okay.

“So, here’s how it’ll go down. Alpha team will be Robin, Gar, and Karen. Alpha will be going in and collecting the data from the current projects. Data terminals are here, and here.” Tim pointed at the top floor of the building, to a middle room, and then to the second sub-level to a room on the far end. He then pointed to ground floor in a back corner. “And there’s a directory terminal here which you can access most information but not all so worst case scenario go here,” Tim explained, “and Garfield,” he added as an after thought, “think small. Beta team will be Bart, Mal, Jaime, and Virgil. Beta will be taking out the perimeter guards at the corner outposts of the compound, Virgil here, Mal here, Bart here, and Jaime here.” Tim said pointing to said spots.

“After you’re done there, evacuate the building as fast as you can then call down to Gamma. Gamma will be me, Conner, and M’gann. We’ll be going down to the lowest level of the compound and we’ll set the explosive devices. Delta will be Wonder Girl, Laga’an and Batgirl. Delta will be in the bioship above, keeping an eye on everything. Kaldur’ahm will be coordinating back here at the Watchtower. First we’ll drop Beta off here from the camo-mode bioship,” Tim said pointing to a point in one of the blind spots of the guard watch-towers. “While the Beta gets the ‘go’ Alpha and Gamma will be dropped off here, from Sphere.

“Beta, the guards have alarms attached to their vitals. As soon as they’re taken out alarms will go off, which means you have to do it quickly, but it also means, Team, that everyone will be going in guns-blazing. As soon as you subdue the guards, Beta, make your way into the compound, remember guns blazing. Cassie, Laga’an, you’ll probably need to be sent in as backup. After Beta and Alpha get out give us a signal and we’ll blow the compound. Conner, M’gann, the bombs we’re using have a two minute timer so we need to get out fast, no dawdling okay?” The other members of Gamma nodded. “Make sense to everyone?” There were a bunch of nods from the crowd. “Okay, good.” Tim turned to Kaldur kind of awkwardly. “What now?” He asked.

“It’s your mission, Tim.”

“Um, okay. I guess, now that everyone knows their jobs… lets go.”

The Team whooped encouragingly and Robin patted Tim on the back as they made their way to the bioship and Sphere. “Good brief.” Robin said.

“Thanks, Babybird.” Tim responded, flushed slightly.

They loaded themselves into vehicles and headed down to the drop spots. Sphere hovered slightly out of sight of the compound, and Conner waited until he heard Mal’s “ _First drop zone is a go_.” He flew Sphere over to the roof of the building and on Mal’s signal the passengers dropped out of Sphere and they heard the sounds of some distressed guards. Alarms started to blare and flights flashed.

Tim took a deep breath. “Here we go.” He said. Gamma and Alpha separated, each going for their own objective.

Guards swarmed the roof and Tim took out his bo staff, ready to fight when Conner scooped him up (much to Tim’s surprised objections) and jumped over the guards. They started shooting but only hit Conner’s invulnerable body. M’gann flew next to Conner in a phased consistency. Conner let Tim go and touched his comms, “Good luck.” He said to Alpha, who were still on the other side of guards and Tim and Conner barged through the door that led down and into the building, sending guards flying as they burrowed through their ranks.

They ran down the stairs, and skidded onto the first floor. Conner punched his way through the swarm of guards while M’gann used her telekinesis to clear a path for Tim. Tim slid, and knocked a row of guards off their feet. One tripped and he threw the man over his head as he rolled to his feet and turned to roundhouse kick the next assailant.

They were making good time as they descended through the building. The building had no elevator so they had to make their way down the stairs while the rest of the guards tried to make their ways _up._

“ _W.G., L.B., we need you in the courtyard_.” Mal called through the comms.

“ _On our way!_ ” Cassie called.

Tim ignored the sounds of his friends beating people up so that he could focus on himself beating people up. They made it to the first sub-level and they found a large, thick, metal wall blocking their way down the rest of the stairs. Tim moved out of the way to let Conner ram through the barrier when he heard a roar behind him. He turned around to see a large, slightly deformed man with a red suit. The man roared, a piece of his red suit was ripped off and hung over itself but when he roared he jiggled and so did his costume, revealing a crooked S-shield.

“Is that… is that who I think that is?” Tim asked. The clone narrowed his eyes and gnashed his teeth.

“Depends, was he this ugly on your world?” M’gann asked.

Conner raised his hands. “God, what happened to you, Match?”

Match roared in response and charged, swinging an arm at Tim first because Tim was closest to him. Tim ducked and dodged out of the way. Match didn’t seem to care though because he kept charging. M’gann went through him and he swung at Conner’s head. He caught the metal wall and tore it open. He screamed and balled the titanium up in his hands and tossed it aside before turning and reorienting himself to attack Conner.

“ _Hey, Robin’s almost done up here, you guys ready?_ ” Karen asked.

Tim looked as Conner blocked a punch from Match. “We’ve um, we’ve got a bit of a situation...” Conner sent a punch back at Match. There was a spray of heat vision and Tim dodged the rays. As the rise of melting metal smell hit him he realized he needed to end this quickly if they ever wanted to get out of here.

“New plan. S.B., Miss M, dodge Match and head downstairs to set the bombs, I’ll deal with him.”

Conner growled and tackled Match, tumbling with him on the ground. “Supes? You hear me?” Tim asked.

“Gimme a minute.” Conner grumbled. “You sure you can handl- him!” The end of his sentence went rose in volume as Match threw Conner off of him.

“I’ll be fine. _Go_.” Tim said.

Conner looked at Match and back at Tim and M’gann grabbed his arm and the two of them ran down the stairs. Match tried to chase after him but Tim vaulted over Match’s head. Once he was sure Conner was out of range he grabbed his kryptonite from his belt. He shoved it in Match’s face and the clone screamed as he stumbled back. Tim made a fist around the glowing green rock and slammed it down over Match’s head. Match fell to the ground moaning, his skin turning a sickly muted green. That should keep him down for a while.

Tim stuffed the kryptonite in his lead-lined pocket and followed after Conner and M’gann down the stairs. “What happened with Match?” Conner asked when Tim caught up to them. (The way down past the now destroyed metal wall had been empty of guards, Tim guessed they’d figured nobody would get passed Match _and_ the wall, well there must have been one skirmish that slowed down Conner and M’gann because Tim had caught up to them easily and there were four unconscious guards only a flight down from the sub-level where Match lay).

“He’s incapacitated.”

“Really? I’m impressed.” M’gann said.

Tim shrugged as he ran past a couple of scientists on their way up the stairs (he felt kinda bad ‘cuz one dropped their notes but then again, they were going to blow up the building the notes wouldn’t have lasted anyway). “I’ve fought Kryptonians before.”

“Wait—you have?” Conner asked. Tim didn’t have time to respond because they had hit the bottom floor.

Gamma split, each one of them going for a different support beam. “ _Timer one, set_.” M’gann said though comms.

“Who the hell are you-?” A scientist asked, confused as Tim barged into their lab.

“Get out.” Tim said. He must have sounded scary because the scientist fled, leaving their work behind. He ran up to a pole (made sure it was the correct beam on his schematics) and began to adhere the bomb to the beam.

“ _Timer two, set._ ” Conner said.

“Timer three, set.” Tim said. “Timer four will be up shortly.” Tim crossed the distance of the lab and attached the last bomb to the final beam. “Timer four, set.”

“ _Okay,_ ” M’gann said though comms. “ _Everyone out of the building?_ ”

“ _Almost-_ ” Mal said when a sudden explosion rocked the building. Tim ducked under a desk until the aftershocks disappeared. “ _I DIDN’T MEAN NOW!_ ”

“That-that wasn’t us!” Tim shouted.

“ _What was that_?” Someone cried.

Tim heard a roar over the crackling of comms. He heard a bunch of screamed and swearing. “ _CONNER, YOUR BROTHER IS HERE AND HE’S ANGRY!_ ” Cassie screamed through the comms. Tim winced as the loud voice sounded in his ear.

“ _I thought you said he was incapacitated!_ ” Conner growled through the comms.

“He was! Like… fifteen minutes ago, I guess.” Tim mumbled.

“ _S.B! We need you a little!_ ”

“Go,” Tim said, “I’ll hit your button on the way out, so one is a few seconds off.”

“… _Okay.”_

The building shook again, and a loud crash sounded and scream from M’gann. “ _Miss M! Miss M!_ ” Conner cried.

“Go! I’ll get to her!” Tim shouted. He stood and ran over to where M’gann had been waiting for the bomb, calling her name. “Can you hear me?”

M’gann didn’t respond. Tim found her under a knocked over desk next to a fallen microscope, a non-ticking bomb was adhered the support beam. Tim ran to her side, and pressed two fingers to her neck. The building must have shook and the microscope must have hit her head, knocking her out while the table fell on her. She was still breathing and her pulse seemed fine.

Tim checked M’gann for injures but other than a bump on her head nothing seemed wrong. Tim pulled her up and over his neck. “M’gann’s unconscious, I’m bringing her up but then I need the bioship to pick her up, Batgirl can you hear me?” Tim stumbled for a second under her weight and grasped onto the beam to steady himself.

“ _Coming in clear, Double R, we’re right here._ ” Batgirl said. Tim heaved as he began his ascent up the stairs. Once he climbed the stairs to the ground floor (he had to give Beta squad kudos though, the building was clear) he headed straight out the doors of the building and Batgirl took her from Tim, swinging M’gann over her shoulder.

Tim ran back into the building, only for the building to partially collapse in on itself. Tim ducked out of the way of a falling rafter beam. “ _Tim!”_ Conner cried. “ _Tim, you okay_?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Tim mumbled. One of the bombs must have went off… Tim must have accidentally pressed one of them when he was carrying M’gann up the stairs.

“ _RR, get out of there. It’s unstable, it’s gonna collapse!_ ” Mal said.

“I have to detonate the other bombs, otherwise they’ll still be able to salvage stuff.”

“ _Tim, no! Just-”_

Tim ignored the rest of the complaint and ran back to the stairs, dodging pieces of fallen and warped building and metal. He crawled down until he got to the bottom floor. He took a deep breath, and began to run, slamming his fingers across the bombs as he went. He vaulted between warped metal and dodged fallen concrete that used to be the higher floors. Tim got to the door only to find the door blocked by fallen two-by-fours. The lock was ticking, so with a deep breath Tim ran up the rest of the stairs.

“ _Tim, where are you_?” Conner asked. “ _You’ve got twelve seconds!_ ”

“I’m on the top floor, the doorway was blocked so I went up to the first opening I sa-”

“ _Tim, jump I’ll-_ ”

But it was too late, and with a loud BOOM! the bombs exploded.

Conner’s ears were ringing and he couldn’t see. There was dust in his mouth and his eyes. He wiped at them viciously. He tried to call out Tim’s name but the dust made him gag. He blinked away the dust and pulled his shirt up and over his mouth. He waved his hand at the dust and grime so he could see better.

“ _Is everyone okay?_ ” Batgirl called through the comms. “ _Roll call._ ”

“ _Blue Beetle_.”

There was a groan. “ _Robin and Kid Flash.”_

“ _Bumblebee, and Guardian.”_

“Static!” Conner heard somewhere to his left. “I’m okay!”

“ _Wonder Girl._ ”

“ _Lagoon Boy_.”

“ _Superboy? Superboy, are you okay_?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” Conner said through his coughing. “Tim? Tim! Roll call.” Conner called. No one spoke. “TIM!” No response. “Beetle, Beetle can you-I don’t know-make a fan or something?”

“ _I-um, I think so?_ ”

“ _Do it, Jaime._ ” Batgirl ordered.

The dust began to dissipate and Conner ran towards the rubble that used to be a building, calling Tim’s name frantically. He took an armful of rubble and lifted it. “Tim! Tim! Where are you?” _Please don’t be dead,_ he begged, _please don’t be dead_. “Tim! _Tim!_ ”

That’s when he heard a shifting of rubble. “Tim! Tim, I’m coming, hold on.” The rubble continued shifting. Conner jumped over to the area where it was moving and began pulling rocks off of the area by the handful. “Tim! Tim, I’m coming. Say something if you can hear me!”

Tim responded with the faintest “Conner?”

“I’m here, Tim, I’m here.” Conner continued digging (in the back of his mind somewhere he was glad that he was invulnerable, otherwise the ferocity with which he was digging would have left his fingers bleeding). He heard coughing and he heaved a last large piece of rubble off of the pile and there lay Tim. Well, there lay most of Tim, his legs and one arm were still covered by debris.

Tim gasped in the air and Conner knelt down next to him, grabbing one of his hands. _Thank god he wasn’t dead._ “Hey, hey, it’s okay, Tim. It’s going to be okay.”

Tim tried to catch his breath but he couldn’t, and the piece of rebar sticking through his abdomen probably didn’t help. “Conner.” He breathed. “Wh-*cough*-why the long face?”

“It’s going to be okay, Tim. You’re going to be okay.”

“You-you look upset.”

“I’m not upset, Tim. I’m not upset at all.” Conner promised. Tim squeezed Conner’s hand.

“That’s good.” Tim said. “I would hate it if you were upset.” He frowned and tried to sit up. Conner stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. Tim winced from the touch.

“Don’t sit up.” Conner said. “You’re… you’re really hurt, Tim. Just don’t move. Everything’s going to be alright.”

Tim rolled his eyes, part of his mask had been crushed by the wreckage. “I’m-” he had a coughing fit that resembled one of a chain-smoker. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”

Conner resisted the urge to laugh. “I’m sure you have, Tim.”

“No, really. One time, one time I was...” Tim’s eyes glazed over. Conner resisted the hysterical urge to shake him back into focusing.

“Tim, Tim, can you look at me? Please look at me, Tim.” Tim turned his head slightly. He grimaced. “Did that hurt?” Conner asked.

Tim tried to nod but couldn’t. “Um, yeah. Yeah that hurt. I’m… I’m really in a lot of pain right now.” He said calmly.

“I know, Tim. I know.” Conner turned around. “I FOUND HIM!” He shouted back at the rest of the Team. “HE’S HURT, BRING THE BIOSHIP, HE’LL NEED IT!”

“Is it really that bad?” Tim asked.

Conner shook his head. “No.” He lied. “It’s not really that bad.”

“Oh. Good. I don’t want… you guys have burdened yourselves so much because of me already… I-” Tim blinked slowly. “I-I have to go home.” He said. He smacked his lips together, but they were chapped from the dusty air. “I have… Conner… I have to bring back Conner.”

“I’m right here, Tim. I’m right here.”

“No...” Tim said. He looked confused. Conner looked down and saw a puddle of an unhealthy amount of blood. “No… that’s-that’s not right. Something’s not right.” He scrunched his face up as he thought. “I… Someone died. I don’t-I don’t think it was you. He-he left me. All alone.” He blinked but his blinking took a little too long.

Conner nudged Tim. “Stay with me here, buddy. Talk to me. Talk to me, Tim, please.” Conner turned back to the rest of the Team. “HURRY UP!” He shouted.

“I think… I have to tell-I have to-I’m...” He looked up at Conner with that same confused look. “I think I have a concussion.” He said. “A really bad...” His eyelids drooped again.

“No! Tim, c’mon, Tim. Talk to me. Say something, please Tim don’t close your eyes.” Conner begged, ignoring the way his voice cracked halfway through and how desperate he sounded.

Actually, to hell with it. He could sound desperate.

He would sound desperate.

He would do anything to keep Tim alive.

“C… K… Is that you?” Tim asked. “I think… I think I’m in… love with you.” Tim whispered. “Can you-pr-promise me-” And Tim’s eyes closed again, and this time when Conner begged him to open them again he didn’t. Conner continued screaming, he screamed for the Team until his throat was raw. When they finally came, pulling him away from Tim he still tried to scream but his voice was empty, despite the fact that it still strained his throat.

Batgirl and Robin were the ones to move Tim. They rested him in a gurney on the bioship (his was next to the unconscious M’gann’s).

“Conner. _Conner!_ ” Batgirl snapped. Conner looked up, eyes wide. “I need you to scan Tim for injuries. Okay? Can you do that?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can.” Conner said. “I can do that.” He used his x-ray vision and cataloged the wounds out loud. “Um, broken femur, broken ankle, four broken toes, a broken tibia, and three broken ribs besides the injuries from the rebar. Rebar ripped the-”

“I know what the rebar did. Jaime, cauterize here.” Batgirl ordered, pointing to a spot in Tim’s lower torso. As Conner smelt Tim’s flesh burning he believed he was going to throw up. Distantly he heard the sharp orders of Batgirl and the silent compliance of the Team and the sudden yet soft and confused mumbling of M’gann as she woke up and Mal’s quiet and fast-paced explanation to her.

“Conner.” Batgirl snapped. “Conner, I need you to tell me what his arm looks like, Karen shrink down, we’re going to need you.”

Conner’s x-ray vision seemed to be fizzling out with his inability to stay focused- _focused on saving Tim, get your act together!_ -he could do this. He could save Tim. He could do it. He could do it for Tim.

Taking a deep breath Conner refocused himself and scanned Tim’s smashed arm. “The-the bone in the forearm is mostly gone in some parts… and he’s shoulder is dislocated as well as fragmented on the end. His-his fingers seem fine though, other that that.”

“Thank you, Conner. Wonder Girl, call the Watchtower tell them we’re coming in hot, and Conner get the hell away from us if you can’t hold it together for an _x-ray_.”

“No-!” Conner argued. He had to help. He hadn’t been there in time for Tim, this was his fault. He _had_ to help. “I can-”

“Either shut up or get into the cockpit.” Batgirl growled at him, there was a sickening squelch from Tim and Conner resisted the urge to throw up, sprinting into the cockpit, hands over his mouth. He just hoped Tim would forgive him.

* * *

When Tim awoke to the familiar sensations of a sterilized recovery room and a bed and pillow that seemed to drown him he shouldn’t have been surprised. And yet...

Tim tried to open his mouth and speak but his mouth felt drier than it ever had been. He tried to move but everything felt so heavy and hard and… cast. He was in a cast. One leg and the other foot, one arm, and his entire torso was taped up. He also had a back and neck brace on which made moving a challenge. He couldn’t move much, and there was something throbbing on his face that made him wonder if he’d started growing something there. He also wondered how long he’d been asleep, and if the pressure he felt on his side was some body part of his he couldn’t feel or if something else was actually laying on his bed. Through some creative maneuvering he realized it was the second, and it wasn’t an it, but a he.

Tim tried to say his name but his voice wouldn’t work so he tried a few more times. Finally he rasped out a “Conner?”

Conner’s head shot up, hair mussed from sleeping at awkward angles. He looked… well, he actually looked kinda cute in a sleepy way. He blinked slowly and licked his lips. He rubbed gunk from his eyes. “Tim?” He asked softly. He placed a hand on Tim’s casted arm. “You okay?”

“Water?” Tim whispered.

“Sure thing.” Conner promised. He gave the hand a gentle squeeze and walked over to a sink, filling a dixie cup with water. He brought it back and Tim drank greedily through a straw Conner had picked up.

“More please.” He mumbled when he was finished. Conner gave him an amused smile and retrieved more water as well as a napkin, he wiped a couple droplets from the corner of Tim’s mouth. He pressed the straw to Tim’s lips. This was repeated quite a few more times before Tim had had his fill.

Tim blinked his eyes lazily. After drinking so much he had settled back into the warmth of the hospital bed he lay in. It was soft and made him feel warm and safe. The soft pressure of Conner’s form at the side of his bed made everything seem… familiar in a safe way. “You okay, Tim?” Conner asked softly.

Tim tried to respond but everything was soft and warm and so comforting and when Tim blinked Conner was asleep and Tim was sure some time had passed, so he drifted back out again.

* * *

This kept up for a while. Tim would drift in and out of consciousness, sometimes he would talk a little, sometimes he was woken up to eat (these times were more often when the part of his intestine which the rebar had pierced had been healed enough that it could hold food and the feeding tube was removed). Tim sometimes awoke in the middle of the night, he would try and wake up Conner (who wouldn’t always wake up) but when Conner would awaken Tim would be fall back asleep.

One time Tim woke to a larger than average amount of people in the room, with a higher than average age. Tim raised an eyebrow. “Who are you people?” He asked, his voice felt phlemy and a little vulnerable and when his drugged up brain connected who was particularly around his bed. “How long have you been here? Have you been watching me sleep? ‘Cuz that’s weird.”

Bruce snorted softly. “Good morning, Tim.”

“’Morning, Grouchy.” Tim said back. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

The musical laugh would have announced the man himself if Tim hadn’t recognized him. He sat in (what was usually Conner’s) a chair next to Tim’s bed. He placed a gentle hand on Tim’s cast. “Kids, right Batman?” Superman asked amused.

Tim have him the side-eye. “You’re one to talk.” He mumbled, unaware his lips were even doing it.

This seemed to surprise both Batman and Superman. “What?”

“You are your mule-headed inability to accept that anyone might need to be dependent on you made you one of the worst fathers in the world. Not to mention your fucking abandonment of a less than like month old kid with no one to lean onto so he has to start selling himself to the media like what the fuck, American dream embodiment my ass. Didn’t even name him until you saw couldn’t get rid of him and he looked up to you so much.” Tim said, tsking.

“He’s-he’s not usually like this...” Conner said hastily to Superman. He turned to Tim. “You okay there, Tim?”

Tim blinked owlishly. “Huh?”

“You… kinda just went on a rant there, buddy.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s ‘cuz Clark deserved it.” Tim’s eyes drooped again. “I’m really tired. And really doped up. Conner, Kon, I think I’m going to go back to sleep now.” Tim yawned and drifted back into sleep.

Conner smiled weakly at Superman. “He’s um… he’s still a little confused.” He said. Tim started snoring. “The concussion was pretty bad. He still sometimes thinks that we’re, well… that we’re _his_ versions of us.”

Superman looked shocked. “His… his Superman…” He couldn’t seem to form the words.

“I’m sure he wasn’t really that bad.” Conner said hastily.

“No, no, I’m sure he was.” Superman seemed to consider something for a moment before he stood awkwardly. “I’m, um, I’m going to go. Tell Tim to take care from me.”

“Okay, are you sure?” Conner asked.

“Yeah.” Superman said softly. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He walked out of the infirmary.

“You’re going to stay?” Conner asked Batman, surprised.

Batman went and sat in Superman’s vacated chair. “Just for a little while.” He said. “Unless you mind.”

“No, I’m sure Tim would like that.” Conner said. Batman stared at Tim with a private detachment, the same look he had whenever one of his proteges were hurt and he couldn’t outwardly show his emotion. “I’m going to get something to eat,” Conner lied, this was… this was a private moment, he felt like he was intruding, “you want anything?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Conner said, and he walked out the door, leaving Batman to watch over his alternate’s adoptive son.

* * *

“Hey, you okay?” Zatanna asked. She and Raquel had joined Conner at the table he was sitting at in the cafeteria. Conner looked up from his cup of coffee surprised, he smiled at them.

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

Raquel shrugged. “You look like someone kicked Wolf.”

“I’m fine.” Conner said.

“I haven’t seen you much lately.” Zatanna said, swinging an arm around him. “How’s Tim?”

“He’s okay. Still drifting in and out. He sorta… just yelled at Superman.” Conner said.

Raquel laughed. “That’s something I’d love to see!”

“Yeah… apparently his Superman wasn’t exactly the best father.”

“Neither is this one.” Raquel said, taking a sip from her coffee.

“He wasn’t that bad-” Conner argued.

“Conner as someone who had one of the best dads in the world, I can confirm… yes he was.” Zatanna said kindly. “He didn’t even want anything to do with you.”

Conner shrugged. “He had his reasons.”

“Yeah, shitty reasons,” Raquel added.

“Have you gotten Tim’s head checked out?” Zatanna asked, changing the subject since Conner had clearly become a little uncomfortable.

“Yeah, Doctor said he’ll be fine soon. I think the drugs are what’s confusing him the most.” Conner said. “When he first got here he didn’t want them at all, complained they made him groggy.”

Zatanna nodded. “Do you know when they’re going to take him off them?”

“A week or so. He should be healed enough by then that the pain will be relatively minimal. They’re also starting physical therapy then, and taking off the brace.”

“Well that’s good,” Zatanna said while Raquel said: “That’s _soon_.”

Conner shrugged. “Doctor said he’d be fine enough for that.”

“But still.”

“He’s excited to be allowed to walk again, in his more lucid moments. He really hated needing a bedpan.”

“Don’t you think he’s pushing himself a little too hard? Sure only a roof fell on him, but a roof still fell on him, not to mention him falling on the rest of the building.”

“What can I say? He likes to push his boundaries.”

Zatanna squeezed Conner’s forearm gently. “Well, I hope it works out for him.”

“Me too.” Raquel said.

Conner nodded in agreement. He took a sip from his coffee while Zatanna and Raquel changed the subject, talking about Raquel’s life as a married woman. Conner zoned out for a bit and was only interested in the subject again when he heard Raquel say: “-so she told me she’s going to come back to the Watchtower and crash here for a few days. It’ll be nice having Artemis around again, maybe we can go on a mission with her, a senior members mission or maybe just a girls’ night out.”

“Artemis is coming back?” Conner asked.

“Yeah, she had a rough time in Vlatava, she needs somewhere safe, y’know? And without Mount Justice...”

“Yeah, I get it. When’s she arriving?”

“Kaldur said he’d pick her up in the bioship around noon and fly her here.” Raquel said.

“Oh.” Conner finished his coffee. Tim wouldn’t be able to see her, he’d probably be too out of it. That was a shame, from when he remembered when they first met Tim had liked her and she him. Conner felt the frustrating urge to do something to get rid of the uncomfortable twisting feeling in his stomach. “I’m going to go train, anyone up for it?”

“I am.” Raquel said.

“I’ll see you two later then,” Zatanna said, “I have to get back planet-side.”

Raquel and Conner said their goodbyes to Zatanna and headed for the gym. Maybe after he hit Raquel’s energy fields a couple times he’d feel better.

The training session was remarkably unremarkable and they stopped after about an hour. Raquel went home to do one last lap of patrol before going home for good and Conner went off to shower, the twisting feeling in his stomach returning every time he thought about Tim.

He changed into clean clothes and walked to his room, he was about to open his door when someone called his name. Conner turned around to see Artemis, smiling at him. Conner ran to her and the two of them hugged.

“I missed you.” She said grinning. Suddenly her face fell, “I heard about Tim. I’m so sorry.”

Conner shrugged. “He’ll be alright, it’ll just take a little time for him to heal.” Conner said. Then something occurred to him. “Actually, can we talk? In private?”

Artemis’s face turned serious at once, with a hint of concern. “Of course. Um… Your room? It’s closer than mine.”

Conner nodded and he and Artemis went to his room. She sat on his bed cross-legged while he paced back and forth, trying to think of a way to begin. “You and Wally were in love.” He began.

Artemis looked confused. “Yes...”

“And that came with all these fuzzy feelings and teasing and gifts and-”

“Conner, are you okay?” Artemis asked, concerned.

Conner sat down, he wasn’t explaining this right. “I haven’t told anyone this yet.” He stated. He looked at Artemis, trying to gauge her reaction. “But, um, Tim told me… No, he-he said he was in love.”

“Oh!” Artemis said startled.

“And I think he meant with me.”

“What do you mean, ‘ _think he meant you_ ’?”

“Well, he was losing a lot of blood at the time and he didn’t actually say my name but I was the only one there.”

“Oh.”

“But I don’t think what he said is true.”

“What?”

“I don’t think he’s really in love with me. I think he’s in love with… I think he’s in love with _his_ me, every time he talks about _him_ he gets this-this look in his eyes. But with me… with me he’s not like that. I think he thought I was Kon.”

“Oh.” Artemis said.

“He hasn’t said anything about it. He hasn’t even mentioned it once, he probably doesn’t remember it.”

She frowned as she studied Conner’s expression. “And I take it that’s… a problem?”

“Not that he doesn’t remember it… that’s good. That’s a good thing, he’d probably be really embarrassed. But the fact that he said it in the first place… that he-why _would_ it be a problem? Why would it make me feel so inadequate? And this… this twisting in my stomach when I think about him isn’t helping.”

“You’re-you’re kidding, right?”

“Huh?” Now Conner was the one who was confused.

Artemis tried to hold back a laugh. “You don’t get it, do you?” Conner looked at her blankly. “Okay,” she said, “um, Conner? Why are you talking to me about this? Wouldn’t Zatanna be better? I mean, I’m not really an ‘emotion’ person.”

“Huh? Well, because… because you and Wally were in love. And you stayed together. Zatanna isn’t, well Zatanna hasn’t had something like that before.”

“Uh huh.” Artemis said. She cocked her head. “And being in love relates to your predicament because…?”

Conner seemed even more confused now. “Tim thinks he’s in love with me?”

“Or…?” Artemis prompted. Conner looked blank again. “Dude, I know you’re smarter than this. You can figure this out on your own. _Or…_?” Conner still said nothing and was puzzled. Artemis sighed. “Okay, Tim says he’s in love with you, you start feeling inadequate, don’t believe him, _and_ start having butterflies in your stomach. You come to me, a person who has been in a long term relationship for five years for advice. Think you can figure out your problem now?”

“No. That’s why I came to you in the first place.”

Artemis put her face in her hands. “Okay, new tactic.” She said, taking a deep breath. “When Tim was buried under that rubble, how did you feel?”

“I was worried, my friend was missing and buried under rubble.”

“And when you found him, how did you feel?”

“Elated, he was alive. And I’d make sure he’d stay alive.”

“You’ve slept by his bedside every night, right?”

“Yeah? So? He has nightmares when I don’t.”

“Is that the _only_ reason?”

“Well… what other reason could there be?”

“When you look at him, how do you feel?” She asked.

“I-I feel happy.”

“When you talk to him, do you want to never stop? Continue being with him? When he goes to sleep you almost don’t want to touch him because it’ll break the illusion that he’s peaceful and okay and that everything’s safe?” Conner said nothing, he just stared at her. “When he was buried under that rubble, did you feel like the world was ending? And that nothing would ever be the same again? And that he had to be alive, he just had to be? When you saw him alive did you care how desperate you looked or were or was all that mattered that he was alive?” Conner swallowed thickly. “When you look at him, while he’s sleeping, do you ever wonder if this is worth it? This saving the world… Do you every think maybe, just maybe if we stopped doing this, maybe he would be safe? And it would be okay to give up because then he would be safe?”

Conner was silent for a while. Then he said, “am I in love with Tim?”

“Congratulations, buddy.” Artemis said, grinning. “I knew you’d get there one day.”

Conner took a deep breath and fell back against his bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Thanks, Artemis.”

“No problem, Supes.” She said, patting his arm comfortingly. “If my services are no longer required, I’m going to go to my room and have a nap.”

“Uh huh.” Conner said numbly. “Sleep well.”

“Thanks. And Conner? Anytime you need advice or something, you can always come to me.”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you want me to shut the door on the way out?”

“Uh huh.”

Artemis held back a chuckle. “Okay, Kid.”

* * *

So. Conner was in love with Tim. He could deal with that. Wasn’t going to meddle in his life at all. Nope. Not one bit. “Conner? Did you hear what I said?” Tim asked.

“Tim, we’re not taking you off your meds until the doctor says so.”

“But they make me groggy. I don’t like them.” Tim argued. “My head gets fuzzy and I can’t think straight.”

Conner resisted the urge to say ‘well when you exist in the same room as me, neither can I.’

Conner chided himself, _what part of not letting my feelings me_ _dd_ _le in my life do you not get?_

The part of him that couldn’t look away from Tim for even a second shrugged.

Tim yawned, a small sleepy whine escaping him. Conner was so in over his head. “Can I at least have my laptop brought in here?” He asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you need to focus on getting better, not working. Plus, Batman’s orders. He doesn’t want you to have any distractions, he says Robin and Batgirl need to relearn how to finish a case on their own.”

“But I’m _bored_.”

Conner scoffed. “You have me to talk to!”

“No coffee, no laptop, you’re killing me Conner, just killing me.”

Conner’s heart twinged. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Tim perked up. “Really?” Conner nodded. Tim grinned at him and Conner’s heart skipped a beat. “You’re the best.” He yawned again and afterward scrunched up his face into a frustrated expression.

“What is it?” Conner asked.

“I don’t like this drowsy side effect from the drugs. I always feel like I really want to be sleeping. And I-” he paused to yawn again.

Conner check his watch. “You know, maybe you _should_ go to sleep. You’ve been awake almost a whole twelve hours, that’s the longest time since the accident.”

“I hate this. I hate this so much.” Tim grumbled.

“Hate what?”

“I hate… not being able to do anything. I hate not being able to stay up as late as I used to. I hate _recuperating_.”

“Well maybe if you hadn’t run back into that building...” Conner said.

Tim rolled his eyes. “Don’t even start with that, every time M’gann has come in here she’s been crying from remorse, ‘if only I hadn’t hit my head,’ ‘I should have just phased,’ ‘this is all my fault,’ I made a decision and it was the right one. I completed the mission. Me being in here in nobody’s fault, not even mine.” He twiddled with his cast. “Though, honestly? I’m glad you were the one who found me.” Conner blushed. They hadn’t talked about what Tim had said while almost dying at all. Conner had actually hoped he didn’t even remember it.

“You are?”

“Yeah… there’s no one I trust more than you here, and the things I said… about-”

“Hiya Tim!” Someone shouted as the door to the infirmary swung open. Garfield skipped over to Tim dripping a mixture of what seemed like slime and mud as he went. Robin and Wonder Girl followed behind Beast Boy, the same mixture dripping from them as well. Robin retrieved a handful of first aid gear and called the others over to him.

“Hey, what happened to you guys?” Tim asked, stifling another yawn.

“We went up against an army of inch-tall Chemos.” Cassie explained. “They were deceptively strong and it was raining and then they exploded on us.”

“Ew.” Tim said.

“Hop up here and let me see your leg.” Robin ordered Garfield. Garfield hopped on the bed that Robin was pointing to and Robin carefully wiped away the gunk with a towel before swabbing the leg thoroughly and placing a bandage on it.

“I tripped and fell and cut my leg on a rock.” Garfield explained.

Robin handed some ibuprofen to Wonder Girl. “Take two now and another two in four hours and the pain in your ankle should go away.” He said. “We should probably leave you two to whatever you were doing.” Robin said, pulling at Garfield who was dawdling. “Besides, we need to shower, maybe for a couple years.”

“See ya!” Garfield said, waving as the trio left the room, marking it with slime and mud as they went.

“And you should go to bed.” Conner added. “Don’t think I didn’t see you trying to stay awake.” He hadn’t, he just wanted to distract Tim from their interrupted conversation. He wasn’t quite sure yet how to tell Tim about his feelings.

“Okay, fine.” Tim mumbled, yawning again. He snuggled into his blankets. “G’night Conner.”

“Good night Tim.” Conner said, ignoring the urge to kiss his temple. He settled for lacing his fingers through Tim’s and getting comfortable in his chair before he too fell asleep.

* * *

“Okay, Tim, you ready to try standing?” Black Canary asked as she took off Tim’s neck and back brace. Tim nodded.

Black Canary had been assigned to help Tim with his rehabilitation. He grasped her forearms and she grasped his elbows and slowly he rose. His legs shook unsteadily and he took a deep breath, concentrating hard. He stared at his legs, _glaring_ at them.

“This is very good progress, we can try more standing lat-”

“No. Walking. Just-” Tim took a deep breath, sweat crawled down his back (somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered what it would be like if he was wheelchair bound after this, what it would be like to become this world’s Oracle, he wondered if he would ever be able to garner the respect _his_ Oracle had). He clutched Canary’s forearms, his pale hands turning even more pale. He took another few breaths and then he tried to step forward but instead of stepping his right leg lunged and he tripped and almost fell to the ground, Black Canary caught him.

“Th-thanks.” Tim mumbled.

Black Canary helped him back to his bed. “Rest a little, we can try again later. For someone who both fell on and under a building, you did very well.”

 _Not well enough, clearly_. Tim hissed at himself, but his legs continued to shake when he put pressure on them so he laid back on the bed.

“Do you want me to come back in a couple of hours to try again?”

“Sure.” Tim said. He said nothing else and Black Canary squeezed his cast sympathetically and left the room. Tim waited until she was out of the room.

Conner was out in class, and Garfield had tutoring. Robin was in Gotham, Jaime and Cassie were on a mission. Kaldur was at a League meeting. Tim was alone. Tim began to psych himself up, mind over matter, didn’t Dick used to say that?

Tim took a deep breath and sat up. He stretched as much as he could. He then looked around for something he could reach that he could use as a sort of crutch. He finally decided to use the metal retractable guard rail as the crutch and he decided he’d start with cruising. He reached over to the bed closest to him and flicked up the guard rail, hoping it would lock in place. He took a deep breath and slid his legs off the bed.

He tried to stand, using the guest chair next to his bed as a cane, to steady him. He took a deep breath and tried to take a step forward, readying himself to fall awkwardly against the guard rail (he prayed to anyone who was listening that it held). He caught himself better than he expected, no shock rocketing up his arms. He let himself feel a bit of pride before squashing it down so he didn’t hurt himself through hubris. He’d had to learn that one the hard way.

Tim started to even out his breath and his legs were still shaking from his (less than average) weight. He clenched his hands around the rail and used all of his strength to move his right foot an inch. He did and let out a laugh of relief, taking in a couple deep breaths. His feet began to hurt and he wondered how long his shaking legs would hold him. He tried to move his other foot to join the other and officially finish the step, but his foot turned on the way down and with his shaky legs and unused muscles he went down with a crash.

Tim didn’t know how long he lay on the ground, trying to reorient himself, but when M’gann came in to bring Tim lunch she found Tim on the floor, struggling to drag himself to his feet. M’gann cried out and ran to him, lifting him up with her telekinesis. M’gann began checking him for injures until Tim waved her off, cheeks a flaming red.

“I just, I wanted to try walking.”

“You need to rebuild your muscle mass.” M’gann said. “You can’t be walking without supervision and you know it.” She seemed really angry, and a little scared.

“I’m fine,” Tim mumbled, slightly petulantly.

“You might _not_ have been.”

Tim sighed. “I thought we settled this, M’gann, me being here isn’t your fault.”

“Yes it is, but if you want me to say it isn’t then fine. It isn’t.” M’gann said as she brought over the lunch tray. She pulled up Tim’s blankets and began worrying over them, fluffing Tim’s pillows and comforter to an unnecessary amount. Tim finally pushed her away. “I’m worried about that fall because I’m worried about _you_.” She sighed. “You… push yourself too hard. Why don’t you ever relax? It’s not a race to get better.”

No, it wasn’t a race. But he had to be better, he had to _get_ better. So-so he could… so he could _what_? He-he wasn’t at home anymore, he no longer had a mission in life (this Bruce was alive). This planet not only had a _him_ , but it didn’t really _need_ him in the first place. Batgirl, Robin, and Batman seemed to be holding up the case load just fine without him (at least according to Robin’s weekly briefings {read: visit}).

Why was he in a rush to get better? Why get better at all? It wasn’t like he was going home anytime soon.

Except that it was.

He had to be ready, ready for anything, even the appearance of this world’s witch which threw him here in the first place. He had to be ready, and he had to be able to walk away. Literally and metaphorically. Because while he _could_ search for Bruce in a wheelchair or in crutches, he knew no one would ever come for him if he fell. No one would help. No one would want to.

“I just… need to get back on my feet.” He stared at his food, pushing it around with his fork. He wasn’t particularly hungry. He suddenly turned to M’gann. “Help me?” He asked. “Help me with my physical therapy! You can help me add more hours! And-and you can-”

“Are you sure Black Canary would be okay with that?” M’gann asked. “You shouldn’t over-work yourself-”

Tim rolled his eyes, “she’ll be _fine_ with it. _I’ll_ be fine with it.”

M’gann chewed her lip. “I don’t know...”

“ _Please_ , M’gann? _Please_!”

“… Fine.” M’gann finally agreed.

Tim grinned. “Awesome!” He cried. He looked back at his lunch tray, noticing that his food suddenly had become slightly more appetizing.

* * *

He and M’gann met for four hours a day, usually at night (if she didn’t have a mission) because her day hours where usually filled with something, plus Tim’s physical therapy tended to be around nine AM so night gave him a good amount of time to rest up. They usually went through whatever exercises Black Canary had gone through that day, plus a few Tim made up himself (such as one where M’gann used her telekinesis to hold Tim up while he practiced walking up and down the infirmary or the hallway outside, here M’gann was making sure he wouldn’t fall but keeping her touch light enough so that Tim could put some weight down on his atrophied muscle and regain muscle memory in his damaged legs).

This went on for about a fortnight when Black Canary finally caught them (as Tim hadn’t told her). Black Canary gave Tim a lecture about overworking himself but considering the progress they’d made she agreed to help him incorporate their exercises into her teaching as well as extending them (though their sessions were still shorter than Tim and M’gann’s sessions had been).

Finally Tim healed enough that he had the stamina to use crutches all day, without supervision. This led to an occupancy in the briefing room where he would bother Kaldur during missions and watch monitors over his (and Batgirl’s) shoulders. Now that he could walk and stand he was doing it all he could (much to his friends’ annoyance he insisted on using stairs, which meant if they wanted to walk and talk _they_ had to use stairs. This led to many a teammate’s decision of speed-talking if Tim was headed to the Watchtower stairwell, which, when done by someone who _wasn’t_ Bart was a sight to behold.

The only person who bothered going up and down the stairs with him was Conner (flyers didn’t count because… well they could fly and it wasn’t as exhausting to them as to others). This was good too because Tim and Conner hadn’t exactly had much time to talk, just the two of them. They talked about a lot on these stairwell climbs, Conner’s school, Tim’s rehab, Tim’s boredom, Conner’s torturous homework, drama happening with Conner’s college friends (Wendy and Marvin, Tim couldn’t stop laughing, he had to sit down and compose himself before returning to ascending/descending the stairs), even (sometimes) the explosion.

Tim and Conner hadn’t actually spoken much about the explosion (and they hadn’t talked _at all_ about what Tim had said while in shock). Tim was sure Conner was ignoring his confession (though truthfully the details of what he had said were a little fuzzy, but he did remember, with absolute certainty that he had confessed. He remembered lying there, under the rubble, Conner cradling his head. He remembered crying—though he wasn’t sure who had—and he remembered the swelling in his heart and the pain in Conner’s eyes. He remembered having it slip out as he was babbling, trying to keep his eyes open. He remembered how the swelling and pressure on his chest seemed gone after that moment, he remembered the sense of elation, but that was all he remembered, and then nothing more). He had to be otherwise he would have mentioned it by now, wouldn’t he have?

Though, clearly the confession had bothered him. While Conner still slept by Tim’s bedside, and ate with him, and entertained him, he still seemed a little detached… removed. He didn’t touch Tim as much: Tim didn’t wake up to Conner holding his hand (as evidenced by the larger amount of emotionally-taxing nights and early mornings, though there were some to which Tim woke up to a hand clenched tightly in his and he was sure that had that reassurance not been there it would have been a draining night), nor did Conner tap his shoulder encouragingly, nor did he lean just a bit too close. It was like Conner was embarrassed to be near Tim, and Tim was sure he saw Conner blush once or twice when Tim teased him affectionately (Conner hadn’t blushed before… was it now because he knew Tim’s had ulterior feelings?).

So to keep Conner in his comfort-zone, Tim remained only speaking about the explosion or the aftermath, not the confession. He couldn’t lose Conner to something as stupid as a confession of love to an uninterested friend, he loved Conner too much for that.

At last, the day came when Tim decided he no longer needed to use crutches, so he did what anyone who no longer relied to crutches would do: he went to the gym.

“Oh, hey Conner,” Tim said. He leaned against the doorjam. Conner was the only person in gym, he seemed to be in the middle of a workout.

Conner stopped his workout and walked over to his water bottle and towel. Tim met him where Conner had laid them down. “You’re walking.” Conner said impressed.

Tim shrugged. “As much as I love the double use of the crutches, it was time to stand on my own.”

“Have you talked to Kaldur?” Conner asked.

Tim shook his head. “Do I need to? Can’t I just go back onto missions?”

Conner laughed, wiping his neck with his towel. “Yeah, because I’m _sure_ he’ll let that fly.”

“Okay!” Tim held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll ask him.” Tim paused before saying, “and I’m guessing because of your response that you won’t spar with me yet.”

“Wouldn’t want you to get injured.” Conner said, drinking from his bottle.

“Oh yeah, because our track record is _totally_ in your favor.” Tim teased.

Conner shook his head. “You can walk, but your muscle memory back for sparing?”

“Why don’t you come at me and we find out?”

Conner averted his eyes and Tim was positive he saw a thick blush (Conner was cute flustered). Conner flashed a small smile and shook it from his face. “How ‘bout we just talk instead?” Conner asked.

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Um… okay. Is… is there something specific you want to talk about?” Tim asked. Conner sat on a large mat of yoga mat material. Tim joined him, a little uneasy on his way down. Conner started forward when Tim wobbled a little but stopped himself. “Little jumpy there, aren’t you?” Tim asked.

Conner changed the subject. “Tim, are you sure you should be going back out? With the frequency that you get hu-”

“There is no way that you will ever keep me out of the field unless I want to be.” Tim stated. Tim loved Conner, but how could Conner even _try_ to convince him to leave the field?

Conner nodded. “I just-it was worth a try, wasn’t it?”

“No.” Tim said, hurt. It _wasn’t_ worth a try! Tim knew that the way he felt by the statement was probably an over-reaction, but he couldn’t help himself from getting upset. Fighting-this… _all_ of this, it was his life. Did Conner not understand that? “It wasn’t. What? Do you not trust me to take care of myself? Do you think I’m _helpless_?”

“No! Of course not! I’m just worried-”

“Why? _Why_ are you worried?”

“Look, I just want to protect you.” It was a stupid comment, Conner knew. He hadn’t expected this strong of a reaction, but the stronger and angrier Tim’s tone the more uncomfortable and angry Conner’s became. He had just tried to speak his mind, tried to keep Tim safe. Why was Tim getting this angry?

“Why? Because I can’t protect myself?”

“Because I don’t know if I can handle you getting hurt again.” Conner was frustrated. He ran his fingers through his hair.

“What? What do you m-?”

“Every night, that I can, I lay next to you, in that chair and-”

“ _I never asked you to do that_!”

“I can’t see you in pain! I can’t-”

“Why do you _care_?”

“Because I’m in love with you!” Conner growled. “I’m in love with you and seeing you flinch in your sleep-hurt so much, every time because you _clearly_ don’t care as much about your life as I do with all those stupid risks that you take-”

“I’m in love with you too.” Tim said. He stared at Conner like a deer in the headlights, still processing his own confession.

“No.” Conner said, shifting away from Tim. “No, you’re not.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I am.” Tim said confidently.

“You’re not.” It was not even denial, the way he said it, it was a simple fact. “You’re not.” He repeated.

“Oh yeah? Why not?” Tim snapped, letting harshness bleed into his tone.

“Because you’re in love with _him_.”

Tim was immediately confused. “ _Him_? Who the hell is ‘him’?”

“Don’t make me say it.” Conner said softly. “Don’t.”

“Well _I_ don’t know who it is.”

“You’re in love with Kon!” Conner snapped. He rolled to his feet, pacing angrily. Tim was too stunned to speak. “It’s obvious! You’ve been in love with him since the goddamn moment you stumbled through that portal! And it hurts! It hurts that I’m not _him_.”

“I’m-I’m not. I’m not in love with him.” Tim said dumbly. Conner just looked sad now. He rubbed his eyes wearily. “Conner, how can I convince you that I’m not in love with Kon?” Conner said nothing, he squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them again (Tim recognized that motion, same motion, same face, different person; that was to stop himself from crying). Tim stood, grabbed Conner by the shirt and brought Conner’s face down to his.

The kiss wasn’t long or even particularly good. A little sloppy and because Conner hadn’t been expecting it, a little one-sided. Though, when Tim realized Conner had had enough time to process the kiss and yet he still didn’t kiss back he knew he made a mistake. Tim let go of Conner, stumbling backwards. Conner stared at him, stunned.

“That-that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that.” Tim said. He continued backwards. Tim watched as Conner’s face fell, and watched him go. Tim saw the moment of regret in Conner’s eyes and in that moment Tim was positive that whatever could have been between them was gone, all because Tim couldn’t keep it in his pants. “I need-I need to go.” He turned and had a stumbling run out, and Conner didn’t try and stop him.

* * *

Bart, Robin, and Jaime were going to go sparring, that was it. The last thing they expected was an awkward kiss between Tim and Conner and then Tim bolting through of the door (pushing past them roughly) like a man on fire. Tim’s cheeks were a burning red. By the time Conner called Tim’s name, Tim was long gone. Conner ran to the door, looking frantically this way and that into the hall but Tim wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Conner leaned against the door and let out something too close to a sob for Robin to know how to deal with (or want to deal with).

Jaime gave Robin a helpless look like ‘what do we do??’ and so Robin did the first thing that came to mind: his finger went straight to his nose. Bart, a clearly quicker thinker than Jaime, copied him and it took Jaime a second to understand what had just happened.

“C’mon, _Ese_ , not cool.” Jaime mumbled softly.

“Besides, I have an idea of where Tim went.” Robin added to his reasons for not doing his bystanderly duties to Conner. (Robin honestly wasn’t sure how he could… he and Superboy never were good at connecting… Superboy was a person who liked stability and abhorred replacements and changes and well, that was kinda what Robin was).

Jaime took a deep breath, hissed something at Scarab about being nice and walked into the gym, ready to brave whatever shoulder-to-be-cried-upon seas he had to.

Robin and Bart took off, Bart following Robin’s lead (though, admittedly, sometimes he would run ahead, then run back and ask where they were going). Robin ran to the zeta tubes, zetaed down to Gotham, and Robin set of swinging, Bart following him on foot.

Tim was exactly where Robin thought he would be. Tim sat on the roof of the Wayne Enterprises tower, his back against the fence, his eyes turned upward to the dim yet black sky. It was impossible to be blind from the night in this city, too much light pollution, which meant you could always look up and see a slightly dim sky, no matter how dark the night.

“How’d you find me?” Tim asked. Robin raised an eyebrow. Tim nodded. “Oh, right. Mini-me.” Tim closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of smogy air. “I missed this.” He said softly. “Your favorite place too?”

Robin nodded. “Of course, from here I can see the whole city. Well, I can see _most_ of the city.”

Tim snorted. “Yeah, B does like his privacy.” The manor was barely visible from downtown.

“How’d you get up here?” Robin asked.

“Passcode. B doesn’t change his from world to world, I guess. I rode the elevator up.” Tim didn’t say anything for a minute, then: “I collapsed. Longest time I’ve gone without crutches.”

“Are you hurt?” Robin asked.

Tim shook his head. “Not physically.”

Bart walked over to Tim and sat next to him. “How much did you see?” Tim asked after a few minutes of silence. The icy night wind blew, Tim didn’t bother wiping his hair from his face.

“Only the kiss.” Robin responded, in the same soft tone as Tim’s question.

“Why’d you run?” Bart asked.

Tim looked a little surprised at the question. “I looked at his face and he looked so… affronted. I just wanted to be home.”

“Didn’t look affronted to me.” Bart argued. “He looked complete.”

“ _Complete_?”

“Like he had just figured out that what was missing from his life was you. You and that kiss.” Bart shrugged. “Ironic, though.”

Robin raised an eyebrow, skeptical of Bart’s usage of the word. “How is it ironic?” He asked.

“Well, he’s only complete with you, and you him, but neither of you can ever really be complete because you can never be together.”

“How so?” Robin asked, a sliver of defensiveness climbing into his words.

“You’re star-crossed.” Bart said with a shrug. “Well, dimension-crossed, really. You may always want one another, and he may be your soulmate and visa versa, but at the end of the day you have a home and an Earth to get back to, and without you he has to carry on too. See? Dimension-crossed. Kinda crash though, it’s like your guys’s love story is an epic!”

There was a silence, a rather long one comparatively. Then, Robin said: “I think that may be one of the dumbest, yet most accurate things I’ve ever heard.”

“Wow. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Babybird.” Tim mumbled.

“Then again, I guess it also is a little moded… hmm… it’s paradoxical! Just like you!” Bart exclaimed, though neither version of Tim Drake was listening to him.

“Think about it, your relationship won’t last long, or maybe it will. Maybe you’ll never be able to go back to your home, but either way you’ll have some more time with Conner, and if Conner looked at you like Bart said he did...”

“But he didn’t. He didn’t even call my name.”

“Actually, he did. You had left the hallway by then, though. For a guy in rehabilitation you run kinda fast.”

Tim stared at his hands. “I just want to go home.” He said, and for the first time in a long while, he completely meant it.

“But then you wouldn’t be able to be with Conner.” Bart said.

“He doesn’t want me around anyway.”

“Yes he does!” Bart argued. “I saw it!”

“After _that_? I don’t know if he’ll ever even face me again. Besides, he doesn’t even believe that I’m in love with him. He thinks-he think I’m confused or something.”

“Then _show_ him you’re in love with him! Make him swoon! Do big romantic gestures or stuff. Oo! Oo! Robin and I can help you plan them!”

Robin laughed nervously. “Actually Bart, if Tim doesn’t mind I’m going to stay out of _that_ part of his personal life.”

“Too weird?” Tim asked.

Robin nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, a little.”

“Huh?” Bart asked, his head super-speeding back and forth between the two of them. “ _Oooh_! Because you’re alternate versions of each other… Oh, I guess that makes sense.”

Both Tims seemed majorly startled by this statement. Bart rolled his eyes. “Oh please, like it was hard to figure it out. Besides, I know Robby-boy’s secret identity, totally not a thing in the future, remember? Also when we walked in you said ‘mini-me’ about Robin, if you want it to stay secret you might try a little harder next time.”

“Uh huh.”

“So are we done have crises? ‘Cuz it’s getting kinda cold up here.” Bart said.

Robin and Tim exchanged looks. “I think we’re going to stay up here for a bit longer.” Robin said. “But you’re welcome to go back to the Watchtower.”

Bart shook his head. “I won’t leave without you two.” He stated. Bart turned to Tim with a smirk on his face. “So… how long have you had a thing for Superboy?”

* * *

Jaime sat next to Conner, waiting for Conner’s shudders to stop. Unsure of how to proceed, he just sat and waiting. Finally Conner calmed down a little and he turned to Jaime. “What’re you doing here?” He asked, harshly.

“I’m… comforting you?” It was more of a question than a statement. “Look, I’m like a shoulder to cry on, if you need one. Not that you do!” Jaime added with an awkward little laugh.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Go away.” Conner said.

Jaime didn’t move. _I do not understand,_ Khaji Da grumbled, _human mating rituals should not be this complicated._

“You’re telling me.” Jaime mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing! Just talking to my Scarab.”

“Oh.”

_Though I do have to say, I appreciate this Tim’s work on the Superboy._

“What?” Jaime asked, confused.

_Anyone who can destroy the Superboy so completely is an admirable foe. Not to mention it is rather amusing to watch him weep._

“Wow, Scarab, you’re really a terrible person.” Jaime said.

_Not terrible, cautious. The Superboy is a mighty enemy, to watch your enemies weep is amusing._

“Superboy is our friend. Do we have to go over the difference between friends and enemies again? And where the team falls on that scale?”

Conner watched Jaime with a strange look on his face.

_No. It was boring enough the first four times._

Jaime decided not to respond and Conner continued to stare at him with that strange look. “The Scarab’s still having some issues.” Jaime admitted sheepishly.

There was a silence, then: “How long?”

“How long, what?” Jaime asked, slightly startled by the sudden question.

“How long were you standing there?” Conner grit out.

“Since the kiss.” Jaime said. He saw Conner’s shoulders sag in relief. “Why? Was there more?” Jaime asked.

“I’m still not talking about this with you.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, if you ever want to...”

“I won’t.”

“But if you ever do.”

“I. Won’t.”

Jaime decided that this would be a good time to shut up. So he sat next to Conner, and that was all. They just sat, and sat. Jaime didn’t know how long they sat but suddenly (after what felt like hours) Conner stood.

“I’m hungry.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’m going to the cafeteria.”

“Okay.”

There was a pause, and finally: “Thanks, Jaime. I… I needed to sit with someone.”

“Oh. Okay. Anytime, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Conner said softly. “Yeah,” and he walked out of the gym.

* * *

“Tim… can we talk?”

Conner hadn’t had a chance to talk to Tim before about what had happened. When Tim, Bart, and Robin had finally returned to the Watchtower Conner had gone to sleep (he had an early class in the morning).

Tim closed his laptop. “Uh, sure.” He said, feeling heat rise to his face.

Conner closed the door behind him and walked to the edge of the bed. He looked down on it, as if he was going to sit down, then he took a step back and began pacing. “Look, I know… about what happened the other night...”

“I’m really sorry, Conner. That was a mistake.” Tim said.

Conner looked surprised, “Uh, right, yeah.” Of course it was a mistake, Tim must have realized that he didn’t really love Conner but loved his Kon instead. That must have been the mistake. “I’m glad you’ve come to terms with your feelings then. So um, I guess I’ll go.”

“Wait, what?” Tim asked.

“You’ve… realized I’m not the Conner you’re in love with?”

“What? No. You are. It was a mistake because, well, you’re clearly uncomfortable with the fact that I kissed you. You realized that after the kiss. It was a mistake to kiss you, especially because I did it without asking you.”

“I-I wasn’t uncomfortable with you kissing me.”

“You weren’t? Because it sure looked like it… and with… well, with _your_ confession you seemed uncomfortable with that too. Is-”

“I’m perfectly comfortable with my-”

“-it because I’m a boy? Because I know that can be… hard for some people to deal with the first time-”

“What? _No_! That has nothing to do with this at all!”

“Then what is this about?” Tim asked.

“I don’t want to push you. I don’t want...” Conner chewed on his lip. “I don’t want to hurt you, or be hurt by you.”

“I would never hurt you.”

“Maybe not purposely, no.”

“You think I’d… hurt you unconsciously?” Tim was confused, how could he do that?

“I don’t- I don’t know, Tim. I’m-”

“You’d tell me, right? You’d tell me if I ever did something to hurt you or… or make you uncomfortable?” Tim asked.

“Of course! I trust you.” Conner stopped pacing abruptly. “If we do this, if we get together I need something of you.”

“Um, okay.”

“I need you to see a therapist.”

“Conner-”

“Just once if that’s all that needs to be! But, Tim I honestly think you can benefit from it, and I don’t know if I can be your boyfriend and your therapist. You can always talk to me, always. But I don’t know, I really don’t know if I could be both. Do you… do you understand? Does this make sense?”

Tim nodded. “I do. I… I understand. And if I ever… if my shit ever gets too much, you’ll let me know, right?”

“I will.” Conner promised.

“Conner?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you again?”

Conner smiled. He walked over to Tim and sat down on the bed next to him. Tim’s breath hitched and Conner bent down and pressed his lips to Tim’s.

* * *

It was mostly quiet in the room, only the sound of trickling water. Which, Tim thought, was a bit of bad planning on her part, after all trickling water was known for making people want to pee, which wasn’t exactly inclusive to comforting and relaxing experience.

Tim twiddled his thumbs and looked around the room. The only cushion-like furniture was what Tim and Black Canary sat on, all other furniture was desks with little plants in pots and the water wall which trickled forever and Tim kinda had to pee now, but it’s a fake pee like a sense of pee without actually having to go to the bathroom. The light wasn’t painful to the eye and Tim was comfortable yet uncomfortable.

“Tim, you said you wanted to talk.” Black Canary said softly.

Tim shrugged. “Conner, he… he wanted me to talk to someone.”

“Why do you think he wants that?”

“I’ve had… I’ve had some issues. And with Conner’s history… he wanted me to talk to someone other than him if we were going to, yknow...” Tim blushed, “um, date, I guess.”

Black Canary smiled. “Congratulations.”

“Uh-I-Thanks, I guess. He’s right, I mean. But, I just… I don’t want anyone else to think I’m crazy.”

“Why would anyone think you’re crazy?”

Tim chewed on his lip. When he didn’t respond straight away Black Canary added: “You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to.”

“No. No, if this is going to work I have to be forthright, right?” Tim took a deep breath. “Back in… back in my world I had a tough year, and losing almost everyone and everything I love didn’t help. My… detective work began to lose credit until no one believed everything I said. Not that I should have expected them to, really. But I knew. I _know._ And I had no way to convince them. So they thought I was crazy, my own _brother_ thought I was crazy.”

“Do you think you’re crazy?”

“No. I know I’m not. I’ve seen crazy. I’ve seen _him_. I’m not him.”

Black Canary nodded. “Why won’t you say his name?”

Tim swallowed. “I don’t think I need to.”

Black Canary nodded again. “Why him? You’re from Gotham, you know many mentally ill villains. Why do you compare yourself to the Joker?”

“You don’t know what he’s done on my world. If you knew, you’d think of him when someone says ‘crazy’ too.”

“What did he do?”

“A better question would be what didn’t he do.” Tim said in a low hiss. Tim crossed his arms, curling in on himself. “Can-can we stop talking about this?”

Black Canary nodded. “It’s your session. We can talk about anything. What do you want to talk about?”

“Not anything really.”

“Do you mind if I ask you questions then?” Black Canary asked.

Tim shrugged.

“How have you been holding up? With the rehab?”

“Fine. I’m off crutches now.”

“I see.”

“Thanks for all that work… I know you didn’t have to-”

“I’m possibly the person who knows the most about the body in the League. It was my pleasure to help you.” Tim didn’t really know how to respond to that. “Besides, better me than Ollie, or someone worse.” Black Canary gave a small chuckle and Tim laughed with her.

“How have the nightmares been?” Black Canary asked. Tim looked surprised and Black Canary explained, “it wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

“They’re better. With Conner… they’ve always been better.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Black Canary said. “Do you think that’s because Kon was so comforting to you?”

Tim stiffened. “No. I think it’s because I felt comfortable with _Conner_ , then later that was probably what led to me falling-” Tim snapped his mouth closed.

“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to.”

“No. I can say it. Led me to falling in love with him.”

“Tim, why did you agree to come here today?”

“Because I want Conner to be comfortable with me.”

“You want to change yourself for him?”

“No. Not _change_. He wants me to be safe, I know that. He loves me and he wants me to be safe. He wants me to be happy. He wants me to be healthy.”

“Do you want that?”

“Of course. Of course, I do. Why wouldn’t I? Of course I want to be healthy and happy and safe.”

Black Canary raised an eyebrow. “One more ‘of course’ and I’ll believe you.”

Tim flushed. “I want to be happy and healthy. I want to be.”

“I’m sure you do. Is there a reason that you’re so closed off then?”

“Like I said, I’m sick of people thinking I’m crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

Tim snorted, rolling his eyes. “Uh huh.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I don’t believe many people. Not anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because why believe them when they don’t believe me?”

“I believe you.”

“Right.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Do you think many people are lying to you? A lot?”

“I guess.”

“That’s okay, you know. It’s not abnormal to feel like that.”

“I know.”

“I’m sure you _know,_ but you don’t believe, do you?”

Tim hesitated then shook his head.

“That’s alright.” Black Canary said softly. “That’s okay. You don’t have to. Someone who’s been disbelieved for so long, it’s understandable that you won’t be willing to accept when someone, someone like me, believes you.”

“Someone like you?”

“An adult.”

“Oh.”

“What did you think I meant?”

“I don’t know… a hero maybe.”

“Do you think your team doesn’t trust you?”

“No. No, they do. And _I_ trust them, before you ask. I also consider them heroes. My ‘a hero’ wasn’t all-encompassing.”

“Do you consider yourself a hero?”

Tim looked down at his hands. “I didn’t. Not since I left being Robin, but now, with the Team… I don’t know. I think I am now. I’m… I’m not who I was. And when I go back, I think I’ll definitely regress to the situation I used to be in.”

“And that situation was?”

“A bad one.”

“I-” A timer went off. Black Canary took out here phone and slid a finger across it, turning off the alarm. “It seems we’re out of time. Do you want to continue next week? I think I’m learning a lot about you and soon we might be able to make real progress in helping ease your anxiety, which in turn can hopefully help your nightmares and your flashbacks.”

“My flashb-”

“Conner told me about two incidents he had worried about. The first, the panic attack when you found out we couldn’t send you home on our own-”

Tim shifted uncomfortably. “That was… that was one time and I’ve gotten over it, I-”

“The other was your mistaking our Superman for your Superman.”

“I was doped up and confused.”

“You seem angry, Tim. I’m worried that-”

“That what? That I’ll have another ‘ _incident_ ’?” Tim snapped. “I’m fine. I’m-”

“Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“ _Conner_ told you this?”

“Tim,-”

“No. No. I have to go. Dinah, thanks for the therapy, none of this is your fault, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again in this capacity.”

“Tim, it was inappropriate for me to say that, but from what I’ve been told I have to-”

“Goodbye, Dinah.”

“Tim-!”

But Tim stood up and walked out.

* * *

“How dare you.” Tim snapped.

Karen and Conner had been talking, but with Tim’s angry outburst they stopped abruptly. Conner stood and looked concerned. “What did I do?”

“You _told_ her. That was _not_ your secret to tell.”

“What about the-the-?”

“The incident? Yeah. _That_.”

Conner’s jaw dropped. “Tim, I didn’t think that was a secret- Tim, I’m sorry! I didn’t know that you didn’t want me to speak about that. I won’t do it again. I promise. Not without your explicit say-so.”

“I can’t believe you told her.”

“I’m sorry, Tim, I’m sorry. I see that it was out of bounds now, and that it was unacceptable. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“You shouldn’t have done it.”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have.” Conner agreed calmly. He walked up to Tim and placed his hands on Tim’s shoulders. “What can I do to make it up to you?” He asked softly.

Tim shrugged and fidgeted. “Nothing...” He mumbled apologetically. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that, I’m sorry too. I was just wound up from-” Tim glanced suspiciously at Karen.

“How about we go to your room?”

Tim nodded. They walked and talked. “I was just wound up from the session.” Tim said quietly.

“How did it go?”

“I’m not going back.”

“Tim-”

“Look, date me, don’t date me. Conner, I just can’t go back there. Not after what you said to her. I can’t-”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“I said, okay. You don’t want to go back, you don’t have to. I wish you would but if talking to Black Canary makes you this upset, then don’t go back. And, if you still want to that is,” they’d reached Tim’s room, “I still want to date you. You tried, and that’s more than anyone else would have done for me.”

Tim sighed tiredly, leaning against the door. He looked up at Conner and Conner smiled softly making Tim’s heart to jumping jacks.

“Hey, you doing anything tonight? Homework or…?”

Conner shook his head. “No. Why?”

Tim smiled back.

* * *

Artemis sometimes wished she could hate them. She wished they were more on top of each other, because then at least she had a reason to roll her eyes when they were together. They weren’t like Artemis and Wally; flinging innuendos at one another like a sport, and driving Kaldur up the wall through the metal link during missions. They weren’t like Zatanna and Dick; hot and fast, so much tension you couldn’t sit between them without feeling like you were intruding. They weren’t like Mal and Karen; so compatible it seemed they’d be together forever, but forever PG. They weren’t like any other type of couple in the group before, they had this sense of doomed, yet tamed intensity.

Currently, they were sitting on the couch in front of the TV. Tim lay across the couch, he had his laptop on his lap and his legs over Conner’s lap. Conner massaged Tim’s legs absently as he told Tim a story. Tim nodded, while typing on his computer. He was clearly listening as he made the appropriate responses at the appropriate times.

Artemis picked up a fresh cookie from M’gann’s most recent tray. She put it straight in her mouth, ignoring the way the melting chocolate was just a _little_ too hot. M’gann raised an eyebrow at her. "Are you maybe now realizing you made a mistake, and do you want to maybe spit out that cookie before it burns off all your tastebuds?" M'gann asked amusedly as Artemis chewed slowly, trying to deal with the fact that she had just burned away all essence of one of her senses.

Artemis looked M'gann directly in the eyes, swallowed thickly, took another cookie from the sheet and stuffed it in her mouth.

M’gann rolled her eyes.

“Tim.” Kaldur said, walking towards the pair. Conner stopped his story and turned his attention as well towards the Atlantean, though his hands continued mechanically massaging Tim’s legs. “I don’t mean to intrude-”

“You’re not.” Tim said kindly.

“Batgirl wants to know if you want to handle the briefing or leave it to her?”

“She can do it if she wants.” Tim said. Kaldur nodded and checked his watch. “Okay, M’gann notify the others: briefing in ten.”

M’gann nodded and sent a message down the telepathic link. Tim finished up the work on his laptop. By the time he was done and his laptop was put away he and Conner had to leave for the briefing. They went hand in hand, talking quietly amongst themselves.

Artemis grabbed a couple more cookies, stuffing them in her pocket. Artemis stopped herself from reaching out for Wally at the sight of the couple. She took a deep breath and followed them, looking everywhere else but their intertwined fingers, despite the way her eyes wanted to gravitate towards them.

They arrived at the briefing room and Artemis couldn’t help but notice when Tim let go of Conner’s hand, a hesitant and longing release. Artemis flushed and looked away, as if that little display of affection was too intimate to be witnessed by outsiders.

Batgirl welcomed the Team and began dishing out assignments. For the time being Artemis would be drafted in to go on missions (not that Artemis minded that, she was at a bit of a dead end with her other project, which was why she was still crashing at the Watchtower). Artemis’s focus was attracted when Batgirl called her name. “-Artemis, Tim, and Conner will be Delta and taking the Bioship. The American Embassy in Bialya is requesting an escort as they move their personnel to the new Embassy on the other side of Al-Qawiya. The migration is at eighteen hundred so you should get there at seventeen hundred for prep. Land in camo-mode on the roof, and the Ambassador will meet you. He has requested that two of you will go incognito with them while one of you watches from a camouflaged Bioship, flying alongside. You may decide amongst yourselves who goes in disguise, and can radio the Embassy en route with your decision.” Delta nodded, understandingly. Batgirl continued with the rest of the briefing and Artemis zoned back out.

It had been a while since she’d been to Bialya. The last time… Artemis thought for a second, then she let herself smile as she remembered. She’d gone with Wally. It was a Team thing, back when they were still on it. The mission included them, Jason, and Tula if she remembered correctly, it had been simple war relief and aid, not that that didn’t mean they didn’t blow anything up while they were there. After all, it wouldn’t have been a Team mission if something didn’t go boom. Jason and Tula had been so done with them by the end of it… Artemis wanted to chuckle. They’d made a bet on how long it would take Artemis and Wally to sneak off for some fun. Tula had won and had shared the profits with the couple, after all she’d made a deal with them when Jason first proposed the bet if they gave her some inside information.

Artemis, Tula, Jason, and Wally.

Artemis was the only one left.

That should have been a warning sign, shouldn’t it have? So why was Artemis still in this costume? Still in this Watchtower? Still pretending to listen to Batgirl say things about a mission that she didn’t care about?

So why was Artemis still here?

Tim poked her arm gently. Artemis jumped out of her daydream, shaking her morbid thoughts from her head. That was mostly all she thought about recently… death. That was a bad omen, right? “We have an hour before we leave, Conner and I are taking showers then preparing the ship. Okay?”

Artemis nodded slowly. Shower. That was a good idea, a healthy idea. Besides, they were heading to a country known for its volatile air, she should check her inventory… Just in case.

* * *

“I hope you’ve enjoyed your flight on AirBioship, we’ll be landing in Al-Qawiya, Bialya in five minutes. The weather’s a beautiful clear sky with a delightful temp of ninty-two.” Conner said. His voice startled Artemis from her lovely nap. She sat up and ran a hand through her hair, straightening it out. She and Tim had decided to go with the Embassy’s employees, while Conner stayed in the sky (their reasons being that they were both better at blending in than he was, Conner couldn’t really argue, though he wanted to).

Tim applied some extremely strong sunscreen to his face (“I burn like a marshmallow on fire,”). He offered the bottle to Artemis who shook her head, Artemis couldn’t burn if she tried.

They landed on the top of the Embassy and Artemis and Tim left the Bioship (Tim gave Conner a sweet, longing look before waving and stepping off the vehicle).

They were met with the Ambassador and her wife. They shook hands and introduced themselves. They handed the pair their disguises and briefcases to put their costumes in. Artemis and Tim stripped down to their undershirts (leaving on their belts and holsters) and pulled on the stuffy official clothing. They gave one another a once-over, making sure that lumps didn’t show suspiciously through their new clothes.

Satisfied, they joined the employees and let themselves be herded into the buses for transfer.

“ _How’re the disguises?”_ Conner asked through the comms.

“You’d hate them.” Artemis and Tim replied in unison. Tim flashed a knowing grin at Artemis and Artemis couldn’t help but smile back.

“ _Good thing you two went instead of me then.”_

Artemis was placed in the Ambassador’s personal car while Tim went with the rest of the employees, he was planted in the middle bus.

The drive across the city would take an hour and a half. Tim settled in for a perfectly normal and uneventful ride, the employees next to Tim were curled up as if this was the only nap they’d be allowed all day (as it probably was). But like so often, the universe decided to prove Tim wrong.

The trouble started with a simple halt of the motorcade at a red light, nothing too suspicious. But then the light changed and the cars didn’t move. They heard the load of loud beeping, concerned, Tim’s hand traveled to the belt under his clothes.

“ _What’s going on?_ ” Conner asked, Tim could hear him frowning over the comms.

Artemis answered. “ _I think… there’s been an engine malfunction, hold on...”_

Tim stood and walked to the front of the bus. “What’s wrong?” He asked quietly.

The bus driver glanced at the bodyguard who nodded to him and said softly. “T-the bus won’t start.”

Tim frowned. “What do you see S.B.?” He asked.

“ _Nothing out of the ordinary… Wait. Look.”_

“I see it.” Tim said. He did definitely see it. He saw all four of the its as they simultaneously stepped out of the stores around the stalled motorcade. Quick as a speedster Tim snapped at the bodyguard, “vest.” The bodyguard basically ripped it from his body. Tim ignored the little voice in his head that chided him for going without Kevlar, and pulled on the vest.

“ _Bulletproof windows?_ ” Conner asked. Tim pulled out his weapon as he saw them pull out theirs.

“ _Not in the buses_.”

Tim grabbed the interbus walkie-talkie and yelled: “EVERYONE GET DOWN!” Right as the terrorists pulled out their sub-machine guns. Tim dove as bullets rained over his head, he grabbed the driver on his way down, curling around him.

Tim couldn’t hear his friends over comms because of the noise, but he was pretty sure they were yelling. Tim mumbled something like “I’m fine, not the issue,” and felt himself go into Red Robin Mode. Making sure that the bus driver was in a safe place away from the spraying bullets, Tim grabbed his staff from under his clothes and a batarang. He opened the doors and did what Bats did best, he disappeared.

He heard confused yelling from the terrorists as one noticed the open doors and no one there. Tim peeked out from his hiding spot under the bus, he wasn’t in a good place to aim his batarang at the gun. He grabbed a couple smoke pellets and crushed them between his fingers. He turned on his infrared and watched as the smoke filled the intersection and the bullets stopped flying as the terrorists tried to stop from coughing.

“ _Tim!”_

“I’m fine.” Tim gritted out.

“ _I hate when you guys do this, most of us have trouble fighting without sight, you know._ ” Artemis hissed.

Tim let himself smirk. “Then this will be good practice.”

He threw a batarang at the gun, embedding it in the muzzle. The terrorist tried to shoot it off again (as some of his friends did, now that they accepted that they couldn’t see), but that only created a small explosion, and the terrorist screamed in pain as his hands burned from the backfire.

Tim took some zip ties out of his belt and tackled him to the ground easily, he heard the grunts and groans of the other terrorists between barrages of shooting that he assumed didn’t hit their target as (from the sound of it) they were still being beaten up afterwards.

“Got one.”

“ _Got two._ ” Artemis grunted.

“ _Three is down, and four will be in a second._ ” Conner added.

The smoke began to dissipate and Tim climbed back on the bus. He handed the bulletproof vest back to the bodyguard (who clearly had never seen anything like this before because he was pale and shaking like a leaf).

“What do we do about the motorcade? It’s still stalled.” Tim asked.

“ _I could ship them back and forth to the new location._ ” Conner offered.

“ _Do it.”_ Artemis said. “ _We’ll protect the others._ ”

Tim nodded, then remembered that his team couldn’t see it. “Right. Artemis, move those from the black SUVs to the buses, it’ll be easier if everyone’s closer.”

“ _Aye, aye_.”

Tim turned to the bodyguard. “Change of plans, my team and I will be taking you bus by bus to the new location.” The bodyguard nodded and made the announcement to the frightened passengers. “Is anyone hurt?” Tim called out. The answer was a resounding no, they weren’t hurt, just terrified. Tim used the interbus communications to ask the same on the following buses. On Bus Three some people had been grazed, but thankfully only one was shot. Tim told them to stay put if there were no medical professionals on the bus, and he’d come help out. There weren’t, so Tim made sure that the bodyguard on his bus had a loaded gun, and he walked over to the other bus.

Tim was just about done stitching up the employee (a cook) who had been shot (nothing too bad, just an arm wound), when Conner announced over comms that he was loading Bus Two into the Bioship for transport. The authorities finally arrived, as well as U.N. and United States officials, and they collected the terrorists and asked for Conner to bring them to the witnesses. Conner stuffed a few of them in the Bioship and flew to the new Embassy.

Tim moved over to help a passenger who heard a sudden loud noise as one of the U.N. vehicles backfired and started having a panic attack. Tim gave him his oxygen supply, and comforted him, one hand rubbing slow circles onto his back. The authorities began taking the statements of Bus Three. They had just gotten to Tim (who had graciously stalled himself having to answer any of their questions by letting others go first) when Conner returned for the last of the employees. In the confusion of the migration from the bus to the Bioship Tim was forgotten and his statement wasn’t taken. Tim was however chided by the emergency medical technicians that the Bialyan government had dispatched with the other authorities for practicing medicine without a license (he was then commended for his superb work, off record of course).

Since Bus Three was the last to be transported, after Tim helped everyone off and onto the roof of the new Embassy he and Artemis changed back out of their disguises and into their costumes. They left with the Ambassador’s thanks and Artemis complimented Tim’s calm during the attack, and Tim commended her for the fast way she’d dealt with the terrorist.

They went back to the Bioship, and Conner took off, radioing in to the Watchtower with a status report.

Tim decided to start typing up his report on the Bioship. Artemis raised an eyebrow at him. “How can you type on this thing? You don’t get skysick?” She asked.

Tim shook his head and shrugged. “With the amount of work I have to deal with on a daily basis back on my world, I learned I needed the time. Plus, I hate my hands being idle, I have to… do something, y’know?”

Artemis nodded, leaning her head back against the rest on her chair. “Why don’t you catch up on sleep? You clearly need it.”

“I can’t sleep on ships like this, unless I’m either _really_ tired or someone drugs me.” Tim said nonchalantly.

“ _Drugs_ _you_?”

Tim smirked as he typed, eyes never leaving his screen. “It happens more often than you’d think. My friends and family seem to think they know better than me-”

“They do.” Conner argued.

Tim rolled his eyes, “-so sometimes if they think I’ve been working too hard they’ll drug me to get me to sleep.”

“Well, that sounds incredibly healthy.”

“That’s what I told them. And wanna know what they responded?”

“What?”’

“That my lack of sleep cycle wasn’t healthy and if I wanted them to stop I’d have to start keeping a normal sleep schedule.”

“These sounds like great friends and family.”

Tim grinned. “They are.”

Conner noticed that it had been a while since Tim had spoken about his friends back on his world, not to mention that he was speaking of them in present tense. The fact that this struck him as strange started to worry him. In fact he was so consumed in the beginning of the worry that he missed both the rest of the conversation and the smoke rising from the desert-y ravines of Bialya beneath him.

Artemis didn’t however. “Conner.” She poked him, snapping him from his thoughts, “look down there!” She pointed to a ravine where smoke rose in pieces as if someone was signaling something in morse code.

Wait a second…

Tim brought up a line to the Watchtower as Delta made a unanimous decision. “Hey B.G., something’s come up, we’re going to stay in Bialya for a little while, okay?”

“ _Sure thing, just don’t cause an international incident._ ”

“No promises.”

“ _You guys need help_?”

“If we do, once we figure out the situation, we’ll call you back.”

“ _Okay. Watchtower out._ ”

Conner changed the trajectory of the Bioship and lowered her in large lazy circles around the smoke and it’s origin. He uncloaked her, so the people (presumably) who lit the signal wouldn’t be terrified of the sudden people walking out of thin air.

This part of Bialya was mainly desert, and not the dune-esque kind. Large ravines and cliffs and mountains were carved into the sandy land beneath them, probably from ancient rivers and lakes that had since been dried up. Small patches of green colored seemingly random places in the crevices of the rock, and here and there animals could be found.

Then they saw the people. A small figure, most likely female, waved her arms up and down, jumping. A large black colored figure lay beside her, and beneath them, Tim was sure, there lay a dried pool of blood, staining the sand. Conner saw the concerning patches in the sand below as well, and hurried up their descent.

He landed, and Tim and Artemis rushed out the door. Conner followed them. The figure who had been waving (a really young girl, it seemed) ran over to them, blabbering frantically in Bialyan. Thankfully, all three of Delta team _knew_ Bialyan, or at least some Bialyan.

“ _-Please, he’s over here, I have to go soon, I am almost out of water and once I return to my village they will not let me go back out he will die-”_

“ _Slow down! Slow down!_ ” Artemis said to the girl. “ _Please, I cannot translate so fast.”_

“ _This man, he needs medical attention and we could not take him to the cities because he is a foreigner._ ” The girl explained more slowly. Tim studied her, something about her just so… familiar… She grabbed Artemis’s hand and began pulled her to the fallen man in the stained sand.

“ _How badly is he hurt and for how long has he been so?”_ Tim asked as he jogged up to her.

“ _A couple days. He crawled into my village from the war zone. I tried to stitch him up but my caretaker was worried we’d be imprisoned, so I had to take care of him here. But I can’t. Not anymore. I_ need _your help.”_

Tim frowned, why did this kid look so familiar? “ _Tim, focus. You have the most medical training out of all of us.”_ Conner said.

“ _Oh. Right.”_ Tim focused back on the person. He knelt down next to him and went to through his emergency care checklist. He checked responsiveness, he asked the girl for his name but she didn’t know, he checked vitals. He pulled off the black mask that the man wore and heard the gasps from his friends, and then he realized who it was. Conner breathed his name, and Artemis sobbed it.

The name rang in Tim’s ears, his head swimming with the name, Tim felt like he was drowning. He looked down and he realized that he was drowning, but it was _him_ who was hurt. Him who needed help, for once.

So Tim sucked it up. “Dick?” Tim asked, patting his cheek and checking his pupils, “Dick Grayson?” He asked, ignoring the way his voice began to break. “Can you hear me?” _Please Dick Please Please PLEASE_

“What’s he even doing here? He should be-Wally he wanted to find...” Artemis asked.

“Call B.G. we’re coming in hot.” Tim snapped at Artemis who began running back to the Bioship. “ _Is his spine okay_?”

The girl nodded nervously. “ _Yeah, he’s mostly patched up but he has a fever and needs antibiotics. He won’t wake up._ ”

“ _Thanks, kid._ Conner I need you to pick him up and bring him back to the Bioship. Can you do that?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Conner said. He scooped up Dick who folded in on himself, unconscious and unaware. Conner turn on his heels and ran, Tim was about to follow him when the child grabbed his hand.

“ _He’ll be okay, right?”_ She asked through teary eyes.

“ _We’ll make sure of it. Thank you for helping him._ ”

The girl gave Tim a small smile.

“ _What’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”_

The girl smiled. _“Traya. Keep him safe. Okay_.”

Traya. Of course. “ _I’ll try_.”

Tim ran to the Bioship.

* * *

The waiting room was too small. Dick’s stitches (sloppy and definitely infected but had scabbed over slightly) had reopened on the flight up to the Watchtower and he’d been rushed into surgery. Needless to say, those still on missions had been recalled as early as possible, so now all of the Team stood crowded in the waiting room. They had been joined by Justice League members who had been close to Dick, such as Zatanna and Rocket, but other Leaguers made appearances to ask how Dick was doing and for moral support.

Batman was nowhere to be seen. But then again, Bruce never was one for crowds.

Tim didn’t want to leave, but the waiting room _was_ too small, and the air in it stifling.

Tim couldn’t leave.

Robin worried an oval into the small amount of room he’d manage to find. No one seemed to have the balls to take up the room he paced in. Though Tim had to admit that if someone _did_ Robin probably would have plowed them over. Robin wasn’t the only one nervously repeating motions. Laga’an would poke his head into the waiting room every five minutes without fail, to check to see if there was any change, then he would leave the room again (to presumably work out as he slowly got sweatier and sweatier as seen on his reentries). Virgil was playing with his powers and a metal pen he’d found somewhere, making it move across the room and zip through his open fingers. Or at least he did until Conner snatched the pen out of the air and snapped it between his fingers with a small growl.

Tim put a comforting hand on Conner’s knee. Conner put his hand on top of it and squeezed while shutting his eyes and moving his mouth nervously as if he was praying. It wasn’t a bad idea.

When the doctor walked out of the operating door the entire room stood. The doctor explained in a quiet voice that Dick was still asleep but stable (an audible sigh of relief was heard), he wouldn’t be allowed visitors except for family (then he corrected himself naming just Batgirl, Batman, and Robin, for everyone’s loud cries of “But _I’m_ his family!”) for the first five hours, but after that his room would be open to the rest of the superhero world. But not to overwhelm him because then the offenders would have to deal with the doctor himself (the joke fell flat, but Tim was sure that it usually raised a laugh, just… not with this crowd, not with this patient).

The team left the waiting room, mostly sated by the doctor’s brief. Tim and Conner remained behind with M’gann, lingering before they too had to leave.

Conner had too much energy to do anything except spar, so that was what he and Tim did. ~~not that Tim needed to spar to burn off his anxiety either no that would be ridiculous~~

They were both soaked from sweat when they decided to stop. Hours had past, neither knew how many exactly. They showered, checked in to see if they could see Dick (they could but he was still sleeping, and there Batman was {of course he was, Tim thought as he stood in the doorway with Conner, leaving the Bats to themselves, of course he was} with Robin curled up on his lap, fast asleep. Batgirl sat doing work in a chair on the other side of Dick’s bed {she’d been crying, Tim could tell}), then they went back to Conner’s room and fell into bed.

Tim hadn’t wanted to be alone, and neither did Conner. Conner curled around Tim, the blanket twisted between their legs. Tim squeezed Conner’s arm which lay around his chest (hugging him tightly), just to make sure he was still there. Tim fell asleep listening to the sound of Conner’s breathing and Conner did the same.

_Conner watched as Wally disappeared, this time Conner had reached out to him, his hand just slipping through where Wally’s outstretched fingers had been._

_Conner screamed._

_He cried._

_He told Wally that Wally could call him ‘Supes’ all he wanted._

_He begged._

_Conner had had this dream many times before, he was used to this torture. This time, however, Wally wasn’t the only one to disappear. No, this time he watched from the Bioship as he stared down at the figure splayed on the blood soaked sand. He knew it was Dick and yet as he stared the figure flicked from the one in black to the one in yellow and red, with hair like fire. Then the hair changed again, back to black. It flicked back and forth, red and black and red and black and red and black._

_Conner reached out to touch the figure and suddenly he was on the ground. His hands reaching for the figure, stretched farther than any normal hand could, stretch and stretch and stretch and as he was about to touch the corpse, blood soaked into his shoes, he disappeared and he cried out for Conner to help. And Conner didn’t._

Conner woke up with a gasp, his hands clenching tightly. He had a headache (must have been clenching his teeth too). It had been a while since he’d had a nightmare about Wally’s death. He focused in on the room around, hearing the _whirr_ of the machines and the crackle of the charging electronics. He calmed himself with Tim’s deep slumber beside him. He closed his eyes, focusing on the thump of his pulse, using it to guide him into a steady breathing pattern. He began to relax again when the tempo of Tim’s breath changed. _Oh shit,_ Conner thought, stilling to the point of holding his own breath, _I didn’t mean to wake him…_

Tim turned over, blinking up at Conner with a concerned yet groggy face. “What’s wrong?” He asked softly, as if speaking up was too hard with his level of exhaustion.

“Nothing.” Conner whispered back. He cuddled closer to Tim. “Just a bad dream is all.”

“Want to talk about it?” Tim asked, speaking slightly louder, his voice husky.

Conner shook his head. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

Tim studied his boyfriend intently before pressing a small kiss to his nose and snuggling into Conner, enveloping himself in the man. “It’ll be okay. Us Bats are fighters, Dick’ll be fine.”

They were so close Conner couldn’t believe they were two separate people. He could feel Tim’s warm breath through his pajama shirt and onto his chest. He wished he was as confident in Dick’s ability to hold on as Tim’s was.

“You-No one ever told me what happened to Dick.” Tim said. “Just that he was gone. Doing his own thing.”

Conner ran a hand up and down Tim’s back, the repetitive motion soothing. “After Wally… died, Dick had a hard time holding on. He… He still believed that he could do… _something_. I’m not quite sure what. And he packed up, kissed Artemis on the cheek after the wake, and said ‘Goodbye’.”

“’Goodbye’? Not ‘See you later’?”

Conner shook his head. “I don’t think he ever planned on coming back. We tried to get in touch with him, and we did a couple times but…”

“But what?”

“He was so far from anything that resembled Dick. He didn’t shower, didn’t sleep, barely ate. Said that he had too much work for arbitrary things like that.”

Tim’s breath hitched. Conner could hazard a guess as to why.

“He put away so many criminals in the early days, prisons all across the world filled up like stores on Black Friday. Then… he just dropped off the map. M’gann scanned for him and she couldn’t find anything. He was just gone. We figured he didn’t want us around, and if he needed something he’d come to us. And then...” Conner look at Tim who’s eyes were closed as if he was asleep, which he wasn’t. Tim shuddered, a grimace crawled onto his face.

“And then what?” Tim asked after a while.

“And then you came. And Dick didn’t come back. And we had our hands full.” The last part was a joke, but Tim didn’t laugh (though a small smile did flash onto his face).

Finally Tim let out a long breath and Conner was sure something tear-like slithered down Tim’s cheeks, wetting Conner’s shirt. “He’s like me.”

“No, Tim. No-”

“He’s who I was. He’s looking for Wally.” Tim looked at Conner’s face, as if trying to determine if he was lying, “you-you looked too, for Wally I mean, right? You helped him.”

“Of course we did. That was why Artemis left the Team.”

“And you gave up?”

“There was nothing to find, Tim. Wally is gone.”

“Why did Dick keep looking then?”

Conner sighed wearily, as if this was a subject to discussion that he was sick of. “He thought that he’d… _seen_ him. Dick thought that Wally had visited him. He’d been drunk and had blacked out. We’d found him the next morning in a crappy bar in Downtown Bludhaven and he claimed that Wally had…”

“You didn’t believe him.”

“He was drunk enough that he’d blacked out, and he remembered nothing else from the night besides that he’d seen Wally. Tim, there was nothing to go on even if we had believed him.”

“He _is_ me.”

“No, Tim-”

Tim shifted away from Conner, horrified. “You were his friends. His _family_. And you didn’t believe him when he said that his best friend wasn’t dead. You didn’t even try.”

“Yes we did! We did, Tim! It was too painful! To-to keep looking, to no avail with nothing to go on but the word of a blacked out drunk man-”

“The word of Dick.”

“You never would have given Dick’s story merit if it wasn’t Dick. Just because Dick said it doesn’t mean-”

“Yes! Yes it does!” Tim’s breath was coming quickly now. His eyes burned with disgust and betrayal.

“Tim, Dick isn’t _you_.”

“I didn’t have any proof when I looked for Kon! Neither did Cassie! But we looked! And we tried!”

“Tim, I-”

“No! Don’t talk to me like _that_!” Tim stumbled off of the bed. “Like you’re-like you’re agree with _them_!”

“I’m sorry, Tim. I should have realized how close to home this would hi-”

“Don’t-! Just-” Tim took a deep breath, pulling on his boots. “I need-I need to take a walk-”

“No, Tim, please. I’m sorry. Come back, let’s talk it out. I’m sorry.”

“-No. No, I need to go.” Tim stumbled to the door. “I have to go. Go back to sleep.”

“Tim,” Conner started to rise, but Tim held up a hand, stopping him.

“If you try and follow me I will break your legs.”

“Tim-”

“No. I’ll do it. I just-I need some time. Okay?”

Conner sank back in the bed, staring at Tim like he’d never seen before. “Okay. You-you can come back to bed anytime. You can-” But Tim had already left the room, and per Tim’s request, Conner didn’t follow.

 

* * *

 

Tim had already been around the entire main floor four times when he decided to go check on Dick. Almost no one was around, which granted, not uncommon at night. A few non-American (north and south) Leaguers were in the Cafeteria because of their time-zones, but everyone else were asleep or on a planets’ surface. Tim peeked into the infirmary and noticed that Dick lay in bed, asleep but alone. Surprised that the Bats had left and interested in checking in on Dick, Tim opened the door and walked in.

Dick was still sleeping so Tim tried to be as quiet as possible. He walked over to Dick’s bedside and checked his vitals despite knowing that Dick had basically around the clock care and if anything was wrong Tim probably wouldn’t notice it. But Tim looked anyway, because he had to. Because this was the closest Tim had left to home.

Dick’s vitals were just as they should be for someone who had been missing for months and who had a patchy medical history. Tim heard something crackle as the air conditioner turned on and he followed the noise to a shivering note stuck under a lamp on the bedside table of Dick’s bed. Tim walked over to it and began reading it only to realize it was not for his eyes, but Dick’s. And yet, that familiar swirly chicken scratch… like a mixture of higher education and someone who didn’t have enough patience to actually write things down, seemed to call to him. Some things never changed, Tim guessed. He doubted there was a single world where Bruce’s handwriting was anything close to pretty (not that he was one to talk, there was a reason Tim liked typing so much).

_J. called. Went to Gotham. Listen to your doctors. Love you. B_

Tim couldn’t help but let out the quietest chuckle possible. Of course, Bruce had written that. Under that Robin had added: _Love you. A sends love, call him more. Both Bs wants to kick your ass when you get better, good luck_. _R_.

“Who are you?” A raspy voice asked. Tim was sure he jumped high and his hands flew to his mouth after he made quite an embarrassing yelp. He dropped the note.

“Who are you?” Dick Grayson repeated, with the most confused look on his face. He hacked out a cough.

“Do-do you want me to get you a cup of water?” Tim asked.

Dick blinked at him. “Uh, sure. Thanks.” His voice cracked at the end of his statement so Tim hurried up his getting Dick something to drink. Tim filled up the cup and handed it to Dick. Dick drank it greedily and burped afterward, looking apologetic at Tim. “Who are you?” He asked for the third time.

“My-my name is Tim. I’m, um, I’m new to the Team.”

“Oh. I’m Nightwing.”

“I know.”

“You-you _know_?” Dick frowned. “You look… familiar.”

Tim flushed. He picked the note up from the floor and handed it to Dick. Dick took it warily and read it, a small smile playing on his lips. He looked up at Tim with a weird expression on his face. “Tim, huh.”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t know who Tim was, of course he didn’t. He’d said so. He had no reason to. But… it still hurt, somehow.

“Um, how are you feeling?” Tim asked.

“As fine as I can… I guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

Tim shrugged.

“So how’d you come to be on the Team?”

“I um, I fell through a portal into this dimension.” Whatever Dick was expecting, it wasn’t that. “And I sort of… portaled into the Watchtower. Into… the middle of a briefing.”

“Oh. Well, welcome, I guess. How long have you been antiquated with the Team?”

“A few-” almost nine “-months.”

“Oh. What’s your hero name?”

“Red Robin.”

“Robin.” Dick repeated. Then his eyes widened. “No. No, you have got to be kidding. Tim Drake?” He snorted and started laughing. The giggles purged Tim’s anger and uncomfortableness and he couldn’t help himself but join in.

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a ‘me’ too?” Dick asked interestedly.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Oh?” Dick studied Tim’s face. “Oh.” He said, eyes wide. “What did I do?”

Tim give Dick his best reassuring smile. “Nothing, really, nothing.”

“Wow. That bad, huh?”

“ _Really_ , it’s nothing that bad.” Dick clearly didn’t believe Tim. But Tim insisted, he insisted and lied, because this Dick did not deserve that. His Dick, sure, but this one, this one was him, and deserved none of this.

“So, how do you like the Team?”

“Oh. You don’t know. Of course you don’t, you haven’t woken up at all or talked to anyone from the Team but the Kid and Babs.”

“Know what?”

“I’m dating Conner.”

Dick’s eyes widened even more. _Oh no, why is he so shocked? Dick can’t be homophobic. No Dicks can be homophobic. Not on any world._ Then he said in the most excited tone Tim had ever heard: “ _He found someone?_ _Oh good for him_!”

Tim stared at him. “What?”

“I’ve been telling him for a while to get back out there but he wouldn’t. I thought he was holding out for M’gann but that would be a really bad idea after… well...”

“You seem… very unsurprised but… shocked.”

Dick shrugged. “What would I be surprised about?”

“Oh. Okay.”

Dick frowned. “Is-is that abnormal for some reason on your world?”

“What? No! I mean, um, not… um… the point.”

“Uh, okay.”

There was an awkward silence and Tim stood. “I’ll, um, I’ll leave you to your sleeping so that you can recover.”

“Tim? Before you leave can I ask you a question?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Why did you come to see me?”

Tim froze, then realized that he had froze and that looked really suspicious so he tried to loosen up, and answered as casually as possible. “Oh, just wanted to check in, you know.”

Dick frowned and studied Tim yet again. “Okay. Um, sleep well if you’re going back to sleep.”

“Okay, thanks. You too. Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about Wally.”

“What do you know about Wally?” Dick asked in a voice harsher (probably) than he meant.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you-”

“I’m not-I’m not upset. I’m sorry.” Dick said softly. “How did you…?”

“Because something surprisingly similar happened to me.”

“You’re kidding.” Dick said.

“No, I’m really not. I also… kinda wanted you to know that I understand and that I believe you.”

Dick stared at Tim, jaw set. “Why? You know nothing about me _or_ Wally.”

“Because no one believed me, and… look, it’s stupid. I just,” Tim paused, “maybe if I believe you, you won’t end up like me.”

“I don’t know,” Dick said with a (forced) smile, “you don’t seem that bad.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“You’re an alternate universe version of my kid brother, you can’t be _that_ bad.”

“Why not? You are.” Tim hadn’t realized he’d said the words aloud until Dick gaped at him and he rolled back his memory to understand what he did to warrant that expression. Mortified, he tried to explain his bitter statement. “I-! I didn’t mean that! Look, my Dick and I have a really… rough relationship right now.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with your… similarity to me, does it?”

Tim decided not to answer.

“Look, Tim. I don’t… really know that much about you but I’m sure, whatever happened, your Dick is worried about you and wants to help you and believe you.”

“Oh Dick...” Tim said gently, he saw Dick’s face and he recognized the look. Dick needed Tim to believe this about Tim’s Dick as much as he needed someone to believe him about Wally. So Tim smiled wistfully, “I’m sure you’re right. After all, who would know Dick better than you?”

“Exactly!”

“Good night, Dick.”

“Good night, Tim.”

Tim walked back to Conner’s room and peeked into the room. Conner looked asleep, his eyes closed and flickering, as if in REM. He had a furrow in his brow, which Tim knew would be the cause of pain and soreness when he woke up and released it from it’s tensed state. Conner blinked his eyes open.

“Tim?”

“Conner.”

“I’m really sorry. Can you forgive me?”

Tim walked into the room and closed the door behind him. Tim walked over to Conner, staring at his puppy-dog eyes. He sat on the bed next to Conner, and kissed him softly on his furrowed brow. “Yeah. I don’t think I could ever stay that mad at you.”

“Thank you for forgiving me.”

“I should apologize too, I didn’t think of context, only of what happened and, well, you were right. It’s possible that Dick didn’t actually see Wally, but… I just can’t take that chance.”

“I understand.”

“Thank you.”

Conner pressed a kiss to his cheek, and the two of them settled back into bed. Before Conner fell back asleep, Tim turned to him, looked at him for a very long time and made a silent decision.

* * *

The next afternoon, Tim found Black Canary and pulled her aside. “I want to try therapy again.” He told her.

Black Canary smiled kindly. “Okay.”

* * *

It was Team Movie Night. Dick had joined the Team. He was still recovering. He’d been malnourished, dehydrated, anemic, infected, leaking internally (the bleed was minuscule enough that he was only really in trouble about a week and a half after it had started), and he had about every deficiency in the book. They were all curled up on the couches and carpet that surrounded the television, Zatanna and Rocket joined too, just to spend more time with Dick.

They were in the middle of their Die Hard marathon (movie three) when something started beeping.

Batgirl stood and walked over to the briefing room and turned off the alarm she’d set. She couldn’t remember for what reason on Earth that this alarm would be going off. She swiped at the alarm and a computer screen popped up (clearly something she’d programmed the computer to do when she’d set the alarm).

As Batgirl watched the video clip which played on the screen before her she understood why she’d set the alarm. Because there on the screen, clear as day, stood a woman in front of the Eiffel Tower. A woman who seemed to have green magic.

Still dazed by the suddenness of the revelation that this woman did in fact exist on this earth, Batgirl walked back to the room with the Team. Tim was napping on Conner’s shoulder. Batgirl made eye contact with Kaldur and he joined her in the hall.

“The computer has found the woman who can send Tim home.” Batgirl explained when he joined her, both of them pointedly out of earshot of the Team (except Conner, but Batgirl hoped he either hadn’t heard or didn’t make a scene, at least).

Kaldur nodded somberly. “Ah.”

“We knew this would happen eventually.” Batgirl said.

Kaldur nodded. Both heroes knew that the other felt as sad as they did that they would have to say goodbye to Tim soon. “I just hope Tim is ready to go.”

Batgirl frowned. “He has to be, doesn’t he?” Kaldur looked back in the direction of the Team, scratching his ear. Batgirl’s eyes widened. “You think he’s going to stay.” It wasn’t a question.

Kaldur shrugged. “That is up to him, but I know that if it were me, I would.”

“But he has a life! A-”

“This is not our decision to make, nor is it our place to speculate about Tim’s reasons for his choice. We will tell him after the movie.”

Batgirl nodded, subserviently. “Understood.”

“Let’s go back to the Team.” Kaldur said. Batgirl nodded again.

* * *

Tim had awoken by the end of the movie. On Kaldur’s inconspicuous suggestion, they took a break for bathroom and replenishing their food stash. Some of the junior members of the team ran to the bathroom, they’d been holding it in so as not to miss the rest of the movie. Conner went to help M’gann with the food and Batgirl and Kaldur snagged Tim alone with a simple “Tim, we have to talk.”

They went into the briefing room and Tim said a concerned: “is everything alright?”

“Tim, we’ve found her.” Tim looked confused so Kaldur elaborated, “the sorceress, the one who sent you here. We think we’ve found her.”

“Oh.” Tim said blankly.

Batgirl and Kaldur exchanged looks, Tim didn’t seem to have really processed that yet, if he had, they thought, he would have had a more expressive reaction… right?

Tim looked at them expectantly. “Okay…?”

“That’s-that’s it? No, I don’t know, no… questions? Objections?”

“To what? We’ve always known that I would be going home one day.”

“Y-yeah, but,” Batgirl looked at Kaldur, then back at Tim, “don’t you… I don’t know, want to talk to...”

“Conner?” Tim suggested. Batgirl gave him a sheepish shrug. “Conner has always known this, like we always have. I would like to say goodbye to everyone first. Before we confront her.” Tim looked at Kaldur and Kaldur was shocked to realize that Tim was asking _permission_. Like he expected Batgirl and Kaldur to take him away at this very second.

“Of course you may. If you want to wait a little, spend one last night with Conner, or even a day or so, we would understand. You do not have to make the decision to leave right now.”

“That’s very kind of you, Kaldur’ahm. But I have work to do. I have people to save. And I need to go home.”

“Of course. Just tell us when you are ready to leave and who, if anyone, you want to see you off and we’ll arrange it.”

“That’s very kind of you. You’ve all been so kind and accepting of me.”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Batgirl said with a smile. She placed a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “You’re part of the Team.” She pulled Tim into a hug.

“And you always will be.” Kaldur added, before hugging Tim himself.

“And you too, you know. If you ever find yourself in my part of the multiverse.” Tim added with a grin. “Just pop by anytime. Stuck or not.”

“Please do not be offended by my saying that I hope it won’t come to that.”

Tim let out a chuckle. “I know what you mean, and I hope you won’t take offense when I say the same.”

“Never.”

“I’m going to say goodbye to them now, then change. I’ll call you on comms when I’m ready to leave, okay?”

Batgirl nodded.

Tim left and walked back to where the television was. The Team was talking amongst themselves, milling around, clearly not everyone was back from the bathroom yet.

Tim took Conner’s hand, interrupting his argument with Laga’an on whether Sam Jackson was better in Pulp Fiction or Die Hard 3. Conner excused himself from the conversation and Tim pulled him along until they found a quiet place to talk.

“Conner, they’ve found her.”

Conner didn’t need the elaboration that Tim had. “They did.” He took a deep breath. “And you’re going.”

“Conner, I have to. Bruce needs me.”

“I know, I’m not arguing you should stay!” Conner said. He cupped Tim’s face in his hands. “I’m just understanding that I’m going to miss you a whole hell of a lot.”

Tim flushed. “I’m going to miss you too.”

“I love you. That doesn’t change. I don’t think it ever will.”

“Same for me.”

“Tim.” Conner shut his mouth with a snap, his lower jaw quivering.

“Oh no.” Tim said as Conner squeezed his eyes shut. “No, Conner please don’t cry.” Conner sniffed loudly. “Conner please, I can’t-you can’t cry.” Tim voice cracked as he spoke, his nose prickling in the way it did whenever he was about to weep. “If you cry, I’m going to start crying too.”

Conner shook his head resolutely. “I won’t cry.” He promised. “I won’t. I won’t.” He whispered, like a mantra. He bent down and kissed Tim, long and hard and full of everything a kiss should be. Tim’s heart beat a mile an hour when he pulled away. Conner listened for a second, and with a light-hearted smirk he added choked, “Sounds like you liked that.”

Tim rolled his eyes and pulled Conner back down into a kiss, salty from their tears. When Tim finally pulled away, he kept his forehead touching Conner’s. “I love you so much.” Tim whispered.

“I love you more.”

“Not possible.”

“If this is impossible then I’m the King of Impossible.”

Tim snorted, but the laugh was lilted with snot and tears from his crying, which only made Tim laugh harder. Soon both Conner and Tim were a giggling mess of snot and tears and kisses. Only when they finally calmed down did Conner said softly. “We should tell the others.”

“Yeah.” Tim agreed. “We should.” He started to go but Conner grabbed his hand.

“Tim? Can I be there? At the end?”

“You want to come with me to see me off?”

“Isn’t that was good boyfriends do?”

Tim smiled and squeezed his hand gently. “I’d love nothing more.”

They walked back to the room. Bart bounced up to them. “Where’veyouguysbeen? We’re ready to start the next movie!”

Conner looked at Tim pointedly and Tim took a deep breath. “Actually,” Tim raised his voice so the whole team could hear, “I have to tell everyone something.”

The Team quieted down and stared at Tim, confused, all except for Batgirl and Kaldur who knew what was coming. “That beeping noise you all might have heard earlier was in fact an alert for Batgirl and me. The computer has found the Parisian Sorceress that sent me here, and so we’re going to go see her and see if she can send me back.” Tim watched as each person realized what Tim had said, and what he meant. “I’ll be leaving today… as soon as I get changed, and say goodbye. I’m going to miss you all a lot.”

Garfield burst into tears, with Cassie not far behind.

“Oh, guys, please don’t cry.” Tim asked as he hugged them. Gar and Cassie only cried harder. Tim went through hugging and talking and saying goodbye to each of the members of the Team. He kissed Karen on the hairline and fist-bumped Mal. He hugged Virgil and Laga’an despite their objections (not that those objections were serious, of course). He had a whispered conversation with Robin, they spoke for a while and both cried during it. Bart and Jaime gave Tim hugs and told him that he’d always have friends with them, and they told him to have a safe trip. He said goodbye to Rocket and Zatanna who wished him luck, and to Dick he said goodbye and out of earshot of everyone else he told him to not give up and that Tim would always believe him. Finally he got to M’gann, and he said goodbye to her, and he hoped she would be well and she said the same for him. She took his hand, and she told Conner to take care of Tim and to see him off. She hugged him and kissed his hairline.

Tim gave another last goodbye to them all and then he left to go change into his gear, and he tried not to cry, again.

He changed and met Conner, Barbara, and Kaldur down in the hanger. They lifted off, waving to the heroes below them.

Tim turned to Batgirl. “Where are we going?” He asked.

Batgirl pulled up Paris’s citywide security system. She scanned them quickly. “She’s still at the Eiffel Tower. Fighting a bunch of cops.”

Tim turned to Kaldur. Kaldur smiled, “Step on it?” He guessed as the Bioship started accelerating. Tim smiled back.

On their way down to Paris they tracked the sorceress, she ended up escaping the police, running around the city. Batgirl tracked her and they found her at an entrance to the Catacombs and they parked the Bioship in camo-mode on a nearby roof.

They dropped down and cornered her in an alleyway. “ _We don’t want to hurt you_.” Tim began in French. She jumped, a hand with green magic humming around it. “ _Listen, we don’t care about whatever you did to get the cops to come after you, we just want to talk._ ”

“ _Nu-uh! You’re going to hurt me! I’ve see you people on TV! You’re those… those hero people who… who hurt people who steal things and I’m just-I’m one of them! You’re going to send me to jail!_ ”

“ _We won’t! Listen, I know this sounds crazy but we just want you to cast a spell for us, that’s it!_ ” Conner added.

“ _No! Go away!_ ” She cried. She shot a blast of green magic at Kaldur and Kaldur ducked, the mailbox behind him turned into a frog. She turned a backpack she wore into a jet-pack and flew off.

“So that’s how she was getting around Paris so quickly.” Batgirl said as she pulled out her grappling hook.

And the chase began.

It was quite ridiculous if Tim did say so himself. And he didn’t, because Batgirl said it first.

“This is completely ridiculous!” Batgirl had huffed as she caught her breath while the sorceress (they still hadn’t caught her name with all the chasing they’d done in the past hour and a half) fought Conner (and by fought Tim meant she threw spells at him and Conner tried not to get turned into a cat or a toad or a piece of paper).

“It is.” Tim agreed. “Let’s end this.” Tim took a batarang and waited until the sorceress’s back was turned to throw it at her. It hit her on the head and she fell. Tim grappled over to where she was and pulled her hands behind her back, wrestling her to the ground. “ _Okay, now let’s talk_.”

“ _What do you idiots want from me?_ ” She snarled. “ _Just leave me alone!_ ”

“ _Look, an alternate universe you sent me here through a portal, now send me back!_ ”

“ _Huh_?”

“ _Look, send him back to his world and we’ll let you go, provided you return the things you stole._ ” Kaldur said.

“ _I don’t know how to make portals to other worlds!_ ”

“ _Try._ ” Conner growled.

The girl scowled. “ _Fine_! _Now let go of me!_ ”

Tim let go. The sorceress scowled. She scrambled away from him and cracked her knuckles. “ _I haven’t done this in a while._ ”

“ _How long is a while_?” Batgirl asked.

The sorceress smirked. “ _When I was nine I sent my older brother to another dimension when he annoyed me. Haven’t heard from him since._ ”

“I don’t know if that’s good or bad.” Conner said.

The sorceress closed her eyes, she took a deep breath and said, “ _I’ll be able to keep it open for only a few minutes. So, say your goodbyes now or something, I guess._ ”

Tim turned to Kaldur and Batgirl. “We’ve already said them. But I’ll say it again, anytime just pop on over.”

“Back at ya.” Batgirl said with a grin.

Conner took Tim’s hand and squeezed it. “We always knew that we were dimension-crossed.” Conner said.

“Wouldn’t last. Couldn’t.” Tim added.

Tim hugged Conner and Conner gave him a kiss on the head. “Dimension-crossed, huh?” Tim said.

“Yeah.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Tim turned back to the sorceress who had a raised eyebrow. “ _I’m ready to go._ ” Tim said.

“Aw _._ _That was sweet. So how long you two been seeing each other?_ ”

“ _None of your business_.” Conner said.

The sorceress grinned and took another deep breath. “ _Here we go_.” She opened her mouth and said a spell. The wind blew around them on that roof and then a whole in the universe began to open. It was small at first, and Tim thought he could see another world, another Paris. It grew and grew.

Then finally, circled in a Lazarus green the portal grew large enough for Tim to be able to just walk through.

“Don’t be a stranger.” Tim said, turning back to the three native-worlders.

“We won’t.” Batgirl promised.

Tim gave them all one last smile. Then he and Conner locked eyes, staring at each other. Tim grabbed Conner by the shirt and gave him one last longing kiss. The sorceress grumbled a “ _oh yeah, lets completely ignore the ‘do everything before I start the spell’ comment, sure the sorceress we strong-armed into doing this is having a great time keeping it open,_ ” so Tim pulled back, both of them breathless and flushed.

“I love you.” Tim said one last time.

Conner smiled. “Love you too.”

So Tim stepped through the portal and came face to face with his world’s sorceress. She stared at him, blinking from five feet over and at where he stood now. “ _Didn’t you just-didn’t…?_ ” She said confused. “ _YOU WERE LITERALLY JUST THERE! YOU FELL THROUGH A PORTAL LIKE FIVE SECONDS AGO!_ ”

That’s when it hit Tim. No time had passed here. “ _Long story, but basically its been a much longer time for me than it has been for you_.” Tim said. “ _And I… really don’t want to fight you and I didn’t when you sent me through that portal. So can you just… go?”_

The sorceress stared at him. “ _You okay, dude?_ ”

Tim sighed. “ _No. But I have a job to do, so my not-being-okay will have to wait._ ” It was time to go find Bruce.


	2. The Epilouge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't as long as the other chapter

The farmhouse was silent besides for the giggles of friends. Ma and Pa had left the farm in the hands of Kon while they went to visit Clark for a week, and Kon had seen this as an opportunity to catch up with his friends. This was how Tim, Cassie, Kon, and Bart had ended up in their pajamas, lounging in a puddle of warmth and happiness while (barely) watching crappy scary movies and snarfing pizza despite the fact they were all out of high school and around their twenties.

“Hey, did you guys hear that?” Kon asked abruptly.

“Really, dude?” Bart asked incredulously, after all pretending to hear something then startling your friends while watching black-and-white horror movies was cliché.

“No, like, seriously. I think I hear something.”

Cassie frowned. “Like a buzzing noise?” Kon nodded. Cassie agreed. “I hear it too.”

The two of them stood, and followed the noise. Bart and Tim exchanged exasperated looks but followed their friends outside to whatever punchline they had waiting.

Except they didn’t have a punch-line. And was it just Tim or was the ground shaking?

“Uh, guys, do you feel that?” Bart asked. The others nodded, readying themselves as weird noises and things that weren’t supposed to be shaking shaking generally meant something was coming. Something bad.

Tim’s hand went for his utility belt (he’d instinctively grabbed it when he’d followed his meta friends outdoors). The wind shook the fields around them filling the air with a sunny smell and a _rushrush_ sound.

_Rushrush. Rushrush. Rushrush. Rushrush._

“I knew we shouldn’t have picked horror as the movie theme tonight.” Bart mumbled. “It’s always when we pick a _horror_ theme.”

_Rushrush. Rushrush. Rushrush. Rushrush._

Tim smelled something burning and was about to open his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by a blinding white light.

Oh no. That was never good.

And yet… when he blinked away the remnants of the light, adjusting once again to the relative country darkness he couldn’t believe what he saw.

Neither, it seemed, could his friends.

“Holy crap. Is that us?” Cassie asked Kon.

Kon stared at the group of people who had suddenly appeared on the Kents’ farm. He recognized most of the people there, though the costumes were slightly different. They all looked beaten and torn, as if they’d come out of a fight. They murmured to each other in confusion, taking in their surroundings and checking themselves to see if their entirety had made it.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Kon said, “but I’ve had my fill of alternate universe mes for a lifetime. Mine, in fact.”

Cassie punched him in the arm because of the last comment.

But while Bart, Cassie, and Kon stared openly at the newcomers none of them noticed when Tim started moving, nor did they notice his quiet, astounded, “ _Conner_.” They did, however, notice when someone who looked suspiciously like Kon (“Dude, nice haircut,” Bart complimented appreciatively) starting running towards their friend. Then, too stunned to react, they watched as the two embraced and well… did a little more than that.

Tim didn’t really care that everyone was watching. He didn’t care that his Kon who had never met Conner before and had no idea about the past relationship between the two was about to be mighty confused. Right now the only thing that laid purchase in his mind was that Conner, granted a slightly older Conner with a minorly different t-shirt design and an undercut (it was really cute if he did say so himself), was here. After all this time.

They met in each others’ arms half way through the distance between their two groups. Tim didn’t know if he was pulling Conner down to him and Conner didn’t know if he was doing the opposite but then they were kissing and it was like the first fresh breath of air in years. They finally detached themselves from one another, foreheads pressed together.

“You’re alive!”

“I never thought I’d see you again!”

“I missed you so much!”

“I love you!”

The sentences tumbled out of their mouths in happy ramblings. It had been a few years for Tim since he’d last seen his boyfriend, but he didn’t know if it had been the same for Conner. Tim took a step back and quickly did a once over of the hero, cataloging injures and any other new information he thought important (which, of course, was all new information).

“Stop that, I’m fine.” Conner chided and Tim raised an eyebrow.

“Like I was fine when we met?”

“No, like I’m actually fine. A little dehydrated but more or less okay.”

“I’d rather make my own assessment, thanks.”

Conner let out a small sigh that could have been a laugh and he kissed Tim again. “I missed you.” He whispered against Tim’s lips.

Alas their reunion was not to last forever and Kon’s eloquent “What the fuck?” was enough to pull the two of them back to reality.

Tim turned back to his friends, cheeks redder than Mars itself. “Yeah, Kon?”

“Why are you kissing a random ‘me,’ Tim?” Kon asked.

Tim rubbed his eyes wearily and Conner looked his alternate self up and down. “Seriously? This is _me_?”

“Kon, Conner. Conner, Kon.” Tim said as he waved a hand between the two Superboys. “Conner, this is Kon, my best friend of many years, no longer dead. Kon, this is Conner, my inter-dimensional, star-crossed boyfriend.”


End file.
